Less Than Human
by Shaded122
Summary: A Rose was stolen from her family and trained to do something no one ever wanted her to do. Now she's been found, but she's very different from what everyone had hoped she'd be.
1. Chapter 1

Taiyang was a happy father, he had spend a full year saving up to take his two daughters on a trip to Atlas. To be honest, Atlas wouldn't have been his first choice if it weren't for the friends he had here, and the fact that his ex-wife,Summer, had a concert here this week. It still hurt to know that she ended up leaving him, but he knew why.

Summer's career as a huntress had ended when an ursa major tore off her right arm. Normally, a huntress would have been able to get a mechanical prosthetic, but she refused, which had made her unable to wield her scythe properly. She originally tried to stay home to raise the kids, but her innate need to help people, and Taiyang's monetary issues at the time, made her decide to try something else. Though what she chose to do surprised everyone who knew her. Summer decided to join a band as the lead singer. She still loved Taiyang, and she most definitely loved her two daughters, but she couldn't spend that much time at home, and felt that he needed another woman to help take care of the kids. So she asked for a divorce, but despite that action, the two were still as close as ever, even if they weren't together anymore.

This trip was as much Summer's idea as it was Taiyang's, he had originally called her to tell her that he was taking the kids on vacation when she excitedly told him that she had a concert coming up in Atlas. After that the two made plans to meet up, and the rest fell into place. Taiyang walked out of Atlas' air docks with a smile on his face while he waited for his two daughters to catch up. Ruby, his five year old, had been excitedly waiting for this vacation since he had told the two of them about it, and now that they were finally here she was practically buzzing with excitement. Her bright silver eyes shining with pure joy as she walked forward, no doubt excited about getting to talk with her mother again. She had even packed a large collection of her drawings to share with her mom. Yang, his seven year old, on the other hand was much calmer. She was still excited, but she showed it in other ways. Primarily the strength with which she'd eventually charge and hug her silver-eyed mother figure.

Taiyang had to suppress a laugh as he saw that Yang had grabbed Ruby's hand and was preventing the smaller girl from charging forward at full speed. All it really did was make Ruby drag Yang along with her, but the older blonde girl was trying her best to keep a relatively normal pace.

"Calm down, little Gem," Taiyang called out joyfully. "You'll see your mom soon enough."

Ruby nodded happily in response, a smile plastered on her face. "But if we move faster we'll see mommy faster won't we?" She asked loudly while continuing to drag her older sister behind her.

"We're going to her concert before we're going to dinner with her. As long as we're there before she gets on stage it doesn't really matter."

"Then let's get there extra early, just to make sure!" The small girl exclaimed excitedly as she redoubled her efforts to drag her sister.

"Dad, you're supposed to be convincing her to walk like a normal person," the blond sister complained lightly, her lilac eyes showing mild annoyance as she looked at her father. "Not to walk faster."

That elicited a laugh from the blonde father, "you know there's no stopping her, Yang. Be patient, it's not that far away."

"Okay," Yang said with a soft sigh, before a smile found its way onto her face. She might be annoyed by her sister's actions, but she did share her sister's excitement.

With that, the family of three walked down the streets of Atlas to the large dome building where the concert would be taking place. The walk only took about fifteen minutes, which left them with a little over an hour until the concert actually took place, and yet there was already loads of people there for the concert. The sight of all of the people there to see his ex-wife's band made Taiyang whistle softly.

"I guess your mom is even more popular than I thought she was," he said softly.

"Of course she is! My mommy's the best!" Ruby exclaimed happily, eliciting a laugh from both her sister and her dad.

"Of course she is," Taiyang said while patting his daughter on the head as he started to walk forward. "Should we go get our seats?"

Ruby opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by Yang saying, "yup!" She gave her older sister a questioning look before she saw the excitement in her sister's eyes, smiled happily, and dragged her sister behind her as she followed her dad through the building.

As it turned out, they weren't allowed to take their seats yet, and had to stay in line for half an hour before the doors to the auditorium opened, allowing them in. When the three family members sat down they talked to each other about how excited they were to finally be meeting with Summer again. Though that quickly devolved into Ruby and Yang arguing over who was going to give her the biggest hug when they went to dinner together.

"I'm going to hug her for thirty minutes," Ruby said with irritation evident in her voice.

"That doesn't matter," Yang responded easily. "I'm a bigger person, so my hug has to be bigger."

"That's not how this works!"

"I'm pretty sure that's how it works, little Gem," Taiyang said calmly while looking at the stage, which earned him a betrayed look from his younger daughter. "Your mom is coming on stage. Let's be quiet and pay attention."

Utter silence descended on the family as the two girls sat straight up and watched as Summer walked onto the stage. Her white cape flowing behind her as she walked up to the microphone in the middle of the stage. She stood there for a few moments, looking out over the crowd before she spoke.

"Hi everyone," she said calmly, her smooth voice flooding the room through the speakers on the walls and ceiling. Cheers erupted from the audience and she had to wait for them to die down before continuing. "Forgive me if I seem a little nervous today. My two beautiful daughters are in the audience tonight, so please give us a little extra support so I can do my very best for them!"

She seemed to get happier as she spoke, her voice getting steadily more excited and happy until, by the end of her two sentences, her voice was practically filled with happiness, and more cheers erupted as she finished speaking. It was during this bout of cheers that the rest of the band decided to walk onto the stage and take their positions. It was time for the concert to begin.

Ruby watched in awe as her mom sang on the stage, her voice filled with energy and joy as she sang songs that uplifted and encouraged the audience to reach for the stars. She watched as her mom smiled and sang her way through song after song, her joy and excitement never diminishing, no matter how tired she must be from singing so much. It was then that Ruby decided that she wanted to be like her mom, a person who never got tired of helping and encouraging others.

It was also at that moment when the fire alarm sounded. It took a few seconds for anyone to register that the alarm was going off. The first person to react was Summer, who immediately stopped singing with a confused expression on her face. After that the rest of the band quit playing and the audience quickly quieted down. The siren rang through the otherwise silent building for a few moments before anything else happened.

All at once everyone stood up from their seats and started rushing to get out of the isles in as rushed a manner as they could. Despite the haste with which everyone was moving, it was a relatively orderly process, with one small hiccup. When exciting the row of seats, Ruby had been cut off by an older man who didn't see her, and was unable to get around him to get back to her dad and sister. While she was almost panicking from this development, someone else grabbed her by the arm and started leading her through the crowd. Sighing in relief that her dad came to her rescue, Ruby kept her head down and let herself be lead through the crowd. She didn't look back up for a full minute, but when she did she realized one thing, this man wasn't her father. As a matter of fact, she was a woman. She immediately tried to pull away, only for the woman to strengthen her grip on Ruby's arm and continue moving forward.

The woman turned to face Ruby, her face full of sadness and regret. "I'm sorry, little one, but the Atlesian government needs volunteers. I'm sure your parents will understand."

 **A/N**

 **So… yeah. I take a long break from FF after completing Wilting, and my first chapter when I return is a very short chapter to introduce a new story. Honestly, I had to seriously debate what to do with this chapter… 'cause … right here, there's a 10 year time skip… and I had to figure out whether or not to put the next part in this chapter, or make it the next chapter. I decided that it made more sense to separate the two. So you guys get a short little teaser chapter I guess. Hope you enjoyed it, and I promise that it won't take me months to get the next chapter out despite how hectic my life is right now.**


	2. A Rose Recovered

General James Ironwood was furious. He walked down the street, his anger radiating off him, with a younger woman following closely behind him. What had started as a regular day had turned into one of the most frustrating of his entire career. Winter Schnee, the woman behind him, had told him that her recent investigation had uncovered an underground branch of the Atlesian military, that had long since ceased reporting in. This "Project for the future" was something that he had never been briefed on when he became a general, yet somehow it was a group that was supposed to be reporting to him.

Still, such a report was only a mild annoyance, he would simply have to contact them and force them to report. A little extra effort sure, but nothing that could ruin any given day. That was until Winter had continued. The young woman went on to report to him that at the beginning of the initiative, they had kidnapped twenty four 'volunteers' and forced them into a training regimen designed to turn them into assassins.

This was when James Ironwood started to get angry, kidnapping was an unforgivable offense, and yet a branch of the Atlesian government, a military group even, had committed said crime. The next bit of information is what put the general in his current mood. Winter Schnee had reported the ages of those kidnapped. Most of the kidnapped 'projects,' as they had been referred to in the records Winter had found, had been between nine and fifteen years old when they were kidnapped ten years ago. Yet two were younger. One was five, the other six. By the time Winter had finished giving him this information, General Ironwood's blood was boiling, and he could easily tell that hers was as well.

The two had decided that this situation could no longer be ignored, and so he had contacted the group, and after a short conversation with their department head, had informed them that he'd be visiting later that day for an inspection. It was the only reason a general would ever, personally, visit 'Project for the Future'. Yet he needed to be there, in person, to tell them that he was shutting them down. He knew that they wouldn't take it kindly, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there would be some arrests, and possibly even fatalities.

General Ironwood and Specialist Schnee now stood in front of the door to the building that was the base of The Project. A large, dome-shaped, building that likely had the majority of its facilities hidden underground. He hadn't planned on hesitating in front of the building. However, walking into a building while obviously furious, was likely to make people more wary rather than accepting. After a few moments, to ensure he was in control of his emotions, he entered the building and walked towards the reception desk, with Winter Schnee close behind.

The two hadn't even gotten halfway across the room before someone called out from the side. "I'm assume you two are the people who are going to inspect the facility?" The feminine voice they heard was laced with annoyance, probably at the fact that the person had been assigned the task of escorting the two military officers.

General Ironwood turned to face the person who spoke, a young woman with silver-eyes and red-tipped brown hair. She came up to his chest and therefore was forced to look up at him. The General's eyes widened. The young woman strongly resembled Ruby Rose, the missing daughter of his friend Taiyang. The only difference being that she had wolf ears on her head.

He took a few moments to look over the young woman, he needed to make sure whether or not this was actually the daughter of his childhood friend Taiyang, even if the two hardly talked anymore. Her eyes were cold and unamused. Her face showed no traces of her true emotions other than boredom, which he suspected to be a farce, and she was wearing a black t-shirt and black pants with a pair of black and red running shoes. Though despite her being the polar opposite of what you'd expect when thinking of the once bubbly and excitable child, he could find nothing, save for the ears, that would label her as someone other than the young Ruby Rose. Especially considering that her colour scheme was the same, albeit she wore more black than red now.

"Yes, I am General Ironwood, and this is Winter Schnee," he said with authority laced in his voice.

"I am aware," the silver-eyed girl responded. She then turned to start walking down a hallway before waving to tell them to follow. "I am Four, and I will be your guide through the facility. Would you like a tour, or will you be speaking to the management first? You could continue staring if you want as well."

"I apologize for that, it's just that you strongly resemble the daughter, of my childhood friend, who went missing ten years ago. I'd like to speak with the management."

That caused the young woman to stop. "You knew me before I was taken?" She asked, her former facade of boredom broken, and replaced with a large amount of suspicion as she turned to face the general, who had frozen at the question.

"If you are Ruby Rose, daughter of Taiyang Xiao-Long, then yes," his words didn't sound as confident as he wanted them to, but the level of confusion he was feeling was something he was entirely unprepared for. "Though I only met you one time. However, I will inform you, that before even coming here, I was less than pleased with this organization, and there is little you can do to change that, even if you are her."

A small sarcastic laugh sounded from Ruby's throat. "As if I would, the management sucks, though the people in 'The Project' are relatively good people… well… as good as you can get when you're trained to be super soldiers or assassins. I am that Ruby Rose by the way. The ears are 'additions' to make me more effective."

"Super Soldiers?" Winter asked from behind the two. "I don't think that was mentioned in any of our files. Our files only mentioned assassins"

"Your files must be outdated by at least seven years then," the red-tipped brunette replied easily, as if ignoring the concern while she turned around to continue walking. "After three years of training, it became readily apparent that only seven of us had the capacity for the stealth and other skills required specifically for assassination. So they took the others and trained them to be super soldiers, something beyond even huntsmen, who could be sent out on what should be suicide missions and still come back alive."

A few moments of silence followed that announcement as both Winter and General Ironwood processed the information. Then the general remembered how Ruby introduced herself. "You introduced yourself as Four," he stated matter-of-factly. "Do you normally go by -"

"No," Ruby said, cutting off the generals question. "We were given numbers by the men in charge, and they only call us by our numbers. We call each other by our underground names, our real names, or nicknames depending on how close we are. The others would hate it if you called them by their names though, we … don't generally like how the management works, and until a few moments ago we all thought that they were working with your approval. As of now, I'm the only one who knows that they aren't. So I'd ask that you'd continue to call me Four. We're almost to the project lounge, the management offices are directly above that."

"They seem confident that you're not going to try and kill them despite how much you dislike them," Winter said with a trace of confusion. "You'd think they'd keep their offices much farther away."

"It's not worth the effort," came the response from their escort. "It's heavily guarded by machine gun turrets and stuff like that, killing them would be more pain than it's worth, especially with nowhere to go after that."

"So they place themselves here to irritate you every time you think about it," General Ironwood said with distaste as he looked towards the ceiling. "I'm liking them less-and less."

"Good thing I'm not here to make you like them, or that'd make me look bad," Ruby said as she opened a door and walked into a large open room with a variety of furniture and televisions. The room also had some workout machines, and even some pool tables off to one side. She then pointed to two large doors on the opposite side of the room. "That elevator will take the two of you to the management offices. I've been ordered to wait here while you have your meeting."

"Thank you for your help," General Ironwood responded professionally. "This meeting may last a while, and I can find my way out if necessary. If something comes up, or you get bored, you may leave."

Ruby simply nodded in acknowledgement and watched as the other two crossed the room, and entered the doors that led to the management offices. She then readied herself for what would likely be a long wait by heading over to one of the couches and sitting down. She didn't have anything to do for the day, so she was planning on waiting for the two of them to finish their meeting, and then either see them out, or give them a tour.

Something that Ruby hadn't anticipated however, was the meeting taking over four hours to complete. Let alone the fact that not only did the general and his little helper come out of the elevator, but also the management of The Project. In the time that they were in their meeting, the rest of the numbered members returned from their daily business. None of them had been given missions today, so all twenty-four of them were there when the group of men and women exited the elevator, and all of them stopped whatever they were doing to stare instead.

General Ironwood walked in front of the group, anger seemingly radiating off the man as the sound of his boots pounding into the ground resounded throughout the room. Ruby was confused, she had known that the general was upset, but while he was obviously angry at something, he wasn't anywhere near as furious as he was now. A quick glance around the room showed that her confusion was mirrored by her fellow project members.

After a few moments of no sound other than his boots hitting the ground, the general's voice rang out. "Due to their hideous treatment of people who can only be considered innocent, the management of 'The Project' are being placed under arrest, and 'The Project' is being officially disbanded. You are all free to leave and live your lives as you so please, just know that the Atlesian Military will be sending a representative here to help you obtain housing and/or a job if you so desire. Otherwise, you are free to leave."

Silence. Complete and utter silence reigned in the room after that statement. A silence that was only broken by the general continuing his march to the building's exit, with Winter and the management following behind him. A million thoughts raced through Ruby's head. This was not an expected development. Sure, she had expected him to do something, but she was mainly thinking he'd improve the quality of life for those who were project numbers. Disbanding The Project in its entirety was not something she thought plausible, let alone possible. This was not the time to dwell on that however, now was the time to make a decision. What decision though? How did she want to live her life? She doubted that they would be happy if she told them that she wanted to continue being an assassin, but she did. It was the only thing she knew. Why would she want to change?

For now, the only answer Ruby could think of was to follow them. The two people who had effectively freed not only her, but her friends and allies as well. She doubted that the representative would actually be able to help her, and even if the general didn't help, he was her best shot at something similar to her current life. So she followed him. The surprised glances from her fellow project members were expected. The concerned glance from Winter however, was not. So naturally she put on her best innocent smile. "Can I talk to you two?" She asked smoothly as if not bothered by anything that had just happened.

"You may," was the cool response that came from the white-haired woman. "Though you may want to wait until we're back at the general's office. Grab your weapons, we'll wait for you in front of the building."

"Okay, I'll just be a moment," the small assassin responded quickly. "You won't have to wait long." With that said, she disappeared in a flurry of rose petals.

 **A/N**

 **Fun Fact. Moving sucks. Fun Fact number two, cats are adorable. Nyway, how's it going everyone? Some of you may be annoyed at me for how long this took, and you'd be justified in being so. I always hand write my stories before I type them up and send them to Imo for betaing/editing, (she's awesome, just saying) and while I don't normally look at the handwritten chapter as reference when typing it, I do like to have it nearby. I've had this, and the next chapter, handwritten for a little while, but due to moving had to pack my notebook :'( . Good news being that I'm done moving, neutral news being that I'm going to try and** _ **not**_ **handwrite my chapters before hand anymore, and see if it impacts the quality of the chapters in any way. So be on the watch out for that in chapter 4. Also, with any luck (I say that 'cause I'm in pain and tired from moving a lot of furniture) I should be able to put out chapter three in a mere couple of days. If I succeed, then think of it as an apology for my lateness with this chapter. Nyway, I hope you all have a great day, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


	3. A Meeting of Friends

Ozpin had had a long day. As the headmaster of Beacon Academy he was required to participate in a series of meetings to prepare for the beginning of the next semester. The meeting he had been in earlier that morning, was one of the more trying ones. It had been about the budget for repairs. Afterall, Beacon was a school for training future huntsmen and huntresses, people who would stand against the monstrous creatures of grimm that plagued their world. One could only expect yearly damage to the grounds. Last semester had been the worst semester in a long while, courtesy of a student 'accidentally' punching a bully through a wall and a statue, both of which had already been repaired, but the costs had eaten into this semester's budget as well.

The headmaster had only been able to sit down for a few minutes after the meeting before getting a message from his friend, General James Ironwood, which informed him that the Atlesian General was going to be arriving at Beacon later that night for a meeting. The only issue that Ozpin had with the message, was that he had no idea what the meeting would be about. He had just finished what was supposed to be the last meeting that needed to be taken care of for a few weeks.

Because of this Ozpin found himself and his assistant, Glynda Goodwitch waiting in his office, long after their normal hours. The two waited with a patience honed over years of planning, waiting, and meetings, for the time that their Atlesian friend would arrive and explain the nature of the meeting. The only thing they knew was that it wasn't a social visit, and if it was, then the general needed to re-examine his definition of a social visit.

Their wait, while several hours long, passed in silence as they each went through their own mental checklists to make sure that absolutely everything was taken care of. As such they were nowhere close to running out of patience when the general arrived. They were, however, surprised to note a second, shorter, silhouette next to the general's. The office that they were in, heavily relied on natural light to light the room. In fact, the only lights in the entire office were by the central desk where Ozpin sat. That, mixed with the fact that the room was very large, made it so that neither Ozpin, nor Glynda, could identify their second visitor. As a result, they waited for the other two to approach.

The general strode forward, his footsteps sounding loudly off of the ground as he walked. However, Ozpin spent most of his attention watching the small figure who was also approaching. They made little to no sound, and if he wasn't watching her he'd have assumed they were approaching slowly and shyly, but to the contrary they were walking side by side with the general. As the person got closer, he could tell more about them, they were wearing a skirt, had faunus ears, and had short, almost shoulder-length hair. Then, they walked into the light, and Ozpin froze for the smallest of moments. The cold, calculating, silver eyes that bore into his, the almost bored expression she had, and the red-tipped hair. The wolf ears were the only thing that brought doubt, but the fact remained that she was almost the mirror image of his former student, Summer Rose, quelled those doubts.

The headmaster quickly worked the shock out of his mind and turned his attention back to General Ironwood, and for a moment the two men just stood there staring at each other. "Three months ago," James Ironwood said softly, breaking the silence that had overtaken the room. "I found a secret group of the Atlesian military that was tasked to train assassins; the group was responsible for the kidnapping of Ruby Rose." The girl to the general's right smiled and waved in a way that would have been a convincing display of a normal schoolgirl, if her eyes weren't passively glaring at Ozpin. "I have since closed the organization, imprisoned all of its staff, and freed the "projects" as they were called. Miss Rose, would like to live a life that puts her talents to use, however if she were to do so, we'd need to keep a close watch on her, and officially none of the four kingdoms should have any needs of an assassin."

"What are you proposing, James?" Ozpin asked as he stared at his old friend.

"Would you be willing to accept her into Beacon Academy, despite her being only fifteen years old?" The general asked, almost hopefully, as he gestured to Ruby. "She's even built a new weapons specifically for being a huntress."

"James," Glynda started as she took a step forward, but was cut off by the very person she was trying to address.

"She's also proven to be more than proficient in combat."

The blonde assistant tried again, "James."

"And she's even proven to be useful in pointing out weaknesses in defenses. She could help you make Beacon even more secure."

"James," Glynda said for the third time while glaring at the general, causing him to sigh.

"Yes, Glynda?"

"If all of these things are true, why wouldn't you enroll her in your own academy?"

Ozpin took a sip of coffee from his mug before he answered in the general's stead. "He can't. He just personally shut down an undercover group under his jurisdiction, so he has the attention of most of Atlas' higher ups. If he were to enroll a fifteen year old, both of them would be accosted by media and officials to figure out why, with that kind of focus, she'll be found, and from there, one of two things would happen."

The pieces clicked in Glynda's mind. "They'd realize she was a part of the group he shut down."

"Or," said the youngest girl in the group, her voice sounding out confidently despite being surrounded by some of the most powerful and influential people in Remnant. "They'd assume, incorrectly, that he had me the entire time. It's a stupid thing to theorize, but everyone has enemies, and the smart ones take advantages of unexpected circumstances."

Glynda stared at the smaller girl in shock. "If that became the popular opinion, he'd be drowning in riots. People only stopped looking for you a couple of years ago, and everyone remembers how heartbroken your mom was."

" 'People' apparently need to get better at looking, or stop wasting time trying," Ruby responded with a mild look of irritation. "But yes, that would be the result, and there might be some people, smart, or stupid, enough to try and spread that rumor."

"Doesn't Ozpin face that same risk though?" Glynda asked curiously.

"To a degree," was the response that came from the general. "He has three major factors in his favor though. Factor number one, he lives at Beacon, and the school grounds are submitted to an inspection every year in between semesters, therefore it is known that she hasn't been hidden on the campus. Number two, Ozpin hasn't done anything major recently, people aren't looking at him or his academy. If Ruby just happens to be there, then it will likely be taken as some form of miracle. Finally, and possibly most importantly, her mother and father live in Vale, meaning that they're close enough to visit her, and close enough to vouch on Ozpin's behalf, should he come under scrutiny." That final fact led to a silence in the room as Ozpin and Glynda both stared at the girl in front of them. A pressing question, that they should have asked by now, brought to the forefront of their mind by that final fact that the general brought up.

"... Do your parents know?" Ozpin asked with a hint of authority in his voice.

"No, they can't be allowed to know until my future is decided."

That caused the headmaster to let out a sad sigh. He could see the reasoning, even if he didn't agree with it. "You know your sister is enrolling this year."

A small smile found its way across Ruby's face, though her eyes remained hard. "That's fine."

"Very well then, the semester starts next week. Tomorrow, Glynda will ensure you have everything you need and help fill out your enrollment papers. One thing though, I need you to tell your parents before the semester starts."

Ruby merely nodded her head in acceptance of the terms given.

"Is that everything you needed to discuss, James?" Ozpin asked wearily.

"Yes," the general responded.

"Then let's leave, it's late and I would like a good night's rest before tomorrow. Glynda, will you show Ruby to a room where she can stay until the semester starts?"

After Glynda gave a nod, the four crossed the room to the elevator together and left.

* * *

Ruby decided that the walk to her new room would be a good time to compare her initial impressions of Glynda and Ozpin, to her current opinions on Ironwood and the elder Schnee sister.

At first, Ozpin came of as a little subpar. Unlike the general, the headmaster seemed more than content to let stuff happen. Such a passive attitude rubbed Ruby the wrong way. Over the course of their meeting though, she had realized something. He wasn't simply letting it happen in front of him, he was putting himself in a position, where he had enough information to control the events. It wasn't necessary, as he had control of the outcome anyway, but someone who was cautious enough to do that when meeting with their own friends, was someone Ruby could respect.

Ironwood on the other hand was rash, and quick acting, someone that you'd want leading the troops, but not making the important decisions. In Ruby's mind, the general was far higher up than he should be. One day he'd make a mistake and show too much force, and it'd come back to hurt him.

Before she allowed herself to compare Glynda and Winter, she noted a window that needed reinforcing. Well, the wall did at least. The window was bullet proof, and could likely take all but the largest of nevermore feathers beating on it before it broke, but the wall around it was weak, and could easily be broken by an Ursa, or a huntsman. ' _Leave it to the huntsmen to fortify the obvious weak spots, but forget entirely to check the surrounding area for weakness as well. No skilled opponent is going to walk in your front door or break your windows unless they absolutely have to,'_ she thought to herself, before noticing that the windows opened, and she instantly knew how she'd break out, or in, if she ever needed to. Well, at least if she ever needed to break into the dorm rooms. Then she noticed something even more pressing, but along the same line of thought.

"Your windows are powered?" She asked with a questioning glance at Glynda, the general and the headmaster had stopped a while back to converse some more.

"They are, is that a problem?" The blonde haired-teacher answered curtly.

"Do you know how easy it is to hack that kind of stuff? Sure you can unlock non-powered windows from the inside if you prepare before hand, but that's still safer than powered windows, at least against someone with the proper skillset."

"Could you hack it?"

Ruby adopted a thinking position in response as she stopped to look at the window to her left more closely. "I've never been good at hacking, personally I'm more skilled at sneaking and digging. Even so, if I had the right tools and a few hours to try, I could get in through the window. Ice Cream on the other hand, it'd probably only take her a couple of minutes."

Ruby turned to see the teacher staring at her incredulously. "Digging? Ice Cream?" Glynda asked in confusion.

A small smile found its way onto the red-tipped brunette's face as she saw how confused the teacher was. "Digging, is what we call searching for information. Generally through less-than-honest means. I'm one of the best informants you can find, though there are a few who have more information than I do. Ice Cream, is the nickname of a friend of mine. She's great with technology."

Just like that, Ruby ended the conversation and briefly compared Glynda Goodwitch, to Winter Schnee. They were both strong, organized, and seemingly strict. The main difference she could find, was the level of pride they had. Winter was a prideful person, even when she had no idea what she was talking about, she had to put on an air of confidence. It was because of that fact that Winter almost refused to ask Ruby any questions all together. Glynda on the other hand, did not take her pride to the same level. She was prideful in her level of skill, and organization, however, she was not afraid to admit to a lack of knowledge, and therefore had fewer problems asking. ' _Of course, this is just first impressions, I could be terribly wrong about her,'_ the small assassin thought to herself as they walked.

With first impressions out of the way, Ruby returned to looking for any weaknesses in the academy's defenses. Taking a mental note of them, and preparing to write them down and submit them to the headmaster some time in the future. Something she was not prepared for, was how close her new room would be. She and Glynda had been walking for maybe fifteen minutes before they stopped in front of a room and Glynda opened the door. She glanced questioningly at the blonde teacher in front of her.

"Ozpin decided that this will be your room and workshop," Glynda said while looking at her scroll, as if hoping to receive another message. "Even during the school year you will have full access to this room, and only a select few teachers will have keys to open it, so it will be up to you to keep it clean."

"Thank you, Miss Goodwitch," Ruby said respectfully.

"I'll stop by at six in the morning, be ready to complete your papers by then, and we'll also be going into Vale to buy you any school materials you may need. I'll need to inspect your weapons when they arrive."

At first, Ruby was a little confused. She had Crescent Rose, the weapon she had designed specifically for Beacon, magnetically connected to the mag-plate on her back. "Ironwood is sending my other weapons as well?" She asked after a few moments. She had thought he was going to dispose of them.

Glynda nodded in response. "He and Ozpin apparently thought it prudent to keep the weapons you're most familiar with nearby, in case of emergency. They will be arriving in two days, and I'll have them for two more, so expect them in four days."

"Thank you," Ruby said again. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Miss Rose."

* * *

 **A/N**

And that marks the end of the introduction I guess. I got a review asking of Ruby was a faunus now, and I guess I should clear that up here. She's still a human. Just because she has faunus ears does not change what she was born as. Honestly, you're going to get very little information as to how the ears were added on, and why they work, 'cause I'm not a genius, so I don't have detailed and finely woven explanations to that. There's also the fact that she still sees herself as a human, a modified human, but a human. Nyway, how'd you like the introduction to the story? Good? Bad? Neutral? Mildly intriguing?  
Hope you all have a great day, and please leave a review.

 **Sauron Note**

Hey there peeps. So I'm told to say things here… so here goes. I just kinda sit in the background and do ideas and stuff. More importantly leave reviews because they make everyone smile :D

 **B/N**

And that makes 3 chapters down, perhaps about time I leave a word or two. To those who don't know me, I'm the beta of everyone's favourite Shaded. We worked together on Wilting, and I'm happy to be helping out on LTH as well. Please do feel free to leave reviews, they help a lot and keeps Shaded motivated. -Imoshen


	4. The Toll of Time

Three days after meeting Professor Ozpin, Ruby had gotten a message telling her that he had informed her parents that they'd be getting a call between Six and Seven P.M. The message had also contained their contact numbers. She had spent the rest of the day wandering around the mostly abandoned campus, thinking of how to handle the conversation with her parents. Should she act like the bubbly and energetic girl she used to be? It'd be simple, she had faked that personality enough times for it to be convincing, and it'd be easier for them to accept her if she acted that way. The problem was, they would eventually come and visit, so if she acted all bubbly and energetic to them, she'd have to keep that act up during her stay at Beacon Academy, and she absolutely hated being bubbly and energetic, it was too much of a hassle. Another issue was that her parents would eventually have to see her for who she truly had become, and keeping that act up in front of them would only hurt them in the long run. Not that she was opposed to hurting them, but everyone wanted her to try to be a nice person and so she would, though it wouldn't come naturally.

She smiled lightly as she climbed her way up to the roof of the dorm building. It was nearing six P.M. and while Ozpin may have given her an hour timeframe to call, she wasn't one for wasting any unnecessary time. She noted that she had less than half a minute left until her she was going to have to make the call and leaned lightly against the railing.

"Wonder what they're like now, hopefully they don't try doting on me, that'd just be annoying. Though they'll probably be too shocked to really do much for a little bit," the silver-eyed girl mused to herself as the looked at the ground far below her. She mentally noted what would be the safest place to land, should she jump from this location, before pulling out her scroll and dialing the number Ozpin gave her for her mother. She then waited a few seconds, and hit the 'call' button right as the time on the clock changed to 6:00.

The scroll rang twice before the image of a silver-eyed woman with red-tipped brunette hair and a face so similar to Ruby's that the two could be mistaken for sisters, probably even twins, if Ruby didn't have wolf ears and the two wore makeup to mask the age difference. It was then that Ruby realized, without a doubt, that this woman was her mother, and it seemed as though the woman on the other end was coming to the same conclusion. The face on the scroll, which had started out with a questioning gaze, had turned to shock, the woman's eyes slowly widening as her mouth slowly fell more and more open.

"Honey? Who is it?" Came a voice from somewhere the scroll wasn't showing. "Is something wrong?"

Summer Rose didn't even bother answering the man, who Ruby assumed was Taiyang as she couldn't remember his voice, instead opting to continue staring into her scroll until she finally said, "Ruby?" The name was so soft that the scroll almost didn't pick it up, but Ruby could read her lips, and she was getting tired of the shocked silence.

"Yes, mom, it's me." That apparently got the attention of the other person in the room, as suddenly a commotion was heard getting closer and closer to the scroll until a blonde man's face also appeared on her screen. "I'm at Beacon, and Ozpin wants me to attend, starting this year," Ruby continued with a small sigh as she looked out over the campus. "It was decided that I should contact you and dad to let you know that I'm alive, and to try and reconnect with both of you."

Apparently it was her dad's turn to gape silently at the screen, as he seemed no more able to speak than his wife had originally been. Summer, on the other hand, had recovered enough to talk. "Decided? You mean you didn't want to contact us?" She asked, with a hurt expression on her face.

Ruby emotionlessly noted that the pain on her mom's face should have hurt her in turn, but didn't. She would have shrugged at the thought, but she didn't call her parents just to cause them unnecessary pain. "Not really," she stated matter of factly. "I haven't seen you two for ten years, I don't even remember you all that well. I felt like trying to contact you would be a mistake, but Ozpin forced my hand. I guess he wants me to try and let you two be my parents again."

She waited for her parents to respond. She watched as the two seemed to digest the information that she had just given them. Her dad slowly drawing into himself as if she had just cut all ties with him, and her mom slowly showing more life and hope. ' _I guess my dad took it hard when I was taken. At least he cared, I guess.'_ Ruby thought to herself as she continued waiting. She wasn't quite prepared for how long the silence would last, as a full minute passed by before she got a response, she had long since gotten uncomfortable with seeing her parents faces on her scroll.

"Can we?" Summer asked hopefully.

"What?" Ruby asked, her silver eyes widening slightly at the unexpected question.

"Can we get another chance to be your parents?" Summer explained, a fire and hope lit in her eyes that almost scared her daughter, who sighed in response.

"I suppose we might as well try. Though I should warn you, I'm not who I was ten years ago, and if you can't accept that, then this will go nowhere," Ruby responded evenly. Her gaze turning into a light glare by the end of her response.

"I… I'll do my best, Ruby. Do you think… that there's any real chance we can be a family again?"

The assassin looked to the sky, "I can't say. Once, my whole world revolved around you. Now, my world doesn't revolve, it's stationary. I wasn't allowed to have people or things that were important to me. However, I guess there's probably a larger chance of us going back to being a family, than there is of me becoming a normal person again." Ruby didn't bother to look down at her scroll. She knew that there was most likely doubt in their minds. Their daughter just mysteriously reappearing after ten years, with a pair of wolf ears on top, must be a little too much for them to believe, or so she hoped. She didn't even know why General Ironwood and Professor Ozpin were willing to believe it, unless one of them had the semblance of detecting the truth, perhaps some glyph from Winter. She sighed heavily.

"I'm going to hang up now. have a good one. This is my scroll and you can use this number to contact me, though I'd prefer if you didn't call too often."

"Have a good day, Ruby. I'm so very sorry that we failed you," was the sad, quiet response she received from her mom before she ended the call.

"You two weren't the only people who failed," Ruby whispered to the sky, sorrow evident in her soft voice. "You were just the closest ones to me. The ones I had the most faith in."

The silver-eyed assassin stood there for a few moments, before a buzzing went off in her scroll. Looking at it revealed that it was a message from her mom.

 _Ruby, in my shock and confusion, I forgot to state that I'm really grateful that you decided to call us, even if you were forced to. I know I've failed you in the past, but please know that I still love you no matter what, and that if you ever need anything… I'm here for you. Leave it to me to remember the important things after we ended the call._

 _\- Summer Rose._

' _She seems to think that I hate her.'_ Ruby thought to herself. ' _I need to tell her that I don't so she'll stop apologizing, but should I add that I simply don't love her either?'_

Deciding to answer that question at another time, Ruby left the rooftop to return to her room. She was going to take Crescent Rose apart and put it back together again. She still wasn't used to her new weapon. She was more used to it than she was dealing with her family however, but that wasn't saying much. Sure her main weapon was also a scythe, but it wasn't a high-impact sniper rifle on the side. Her main weapon was also slightly shorter than Crescent Rose was, and was much lighter. So she had formed a routine of taking it to pieces, and putting it back together to familiarize herself with its parts, it taking priority over actually practicing with the weapon itself. She knew how to use a scythe, and she knew how to use a sniper rifle, so she wasn't too concerned there, she was mostly worried that she might run into a problem with it that she couldn't fix in the field. She didn't want to be forced to fight grimm with a broken weapon

* * *

Another three days passed before the students started to arrive at Beacon. Ruby smiled to herself as she watched the soon-to-be first years stumble around the campus looking for the auditorium, where they were supposed to be gathering. Some of them even had maps, but were too distracted by what was around them to be able to read it properly. The small assassin had honestly been dreading this day, as there was no chance that she wouldn't meet her sister today, and her call with her parents had been more than awkward enough. She wasn't going to try and hide, as that would only cause further problems, but she was most definitely _not_ looking forward to the event.

As such she slowly made her way to the auditorium, timing her arrival to be right as Ozpin started his speech about how everyone in there was just a bunch of wasted potential and how their years at Beacon Academy would give them an opportunity to change that. It was an odd speech, but it definitely got everyone's attention, except for a certain lilac-eyed, blonde-haired girl who was heading straight for Ruby.

"You're really here," the blonde said as she approached. "You… really have wolf ears." She continued as her expression changed from disbelief to joy and she reached out a hand to touch Ruby's shoulder.

"Yes, Yang," Ruby responded dryly. "My name is Ruby, and it's nice to see you too, I guess."

"I'm sorry," Yang said with small tears forming in her eyes. "It's just, we spent so long looking for you. I mean, we looked everywhere."

The silver-eyed girl stifled a small, sarcastic laugh. "Obviously not everywhere, or you would have found me," she said with a small grin at the obvious distress the statement had caused her sister.

Ruby watched as the blonde in front of her seemed to struggle with her words, as she tried to form a response to Ruby's statement, but ultimately couldn't. After a few seconds though, the silver-eyed girl realized exactly how troubled her older sister was, and felt a need to comfort her. "Don't worry about it, Yang, I don't hate you. I just don't remember you all that much." With that said, and no other words of comfort that she could think of, she placed a hand on her sister's shoulder before walking away and preparing to go to sleep.

 **A/N**

 **Hey everyone, how's it going? Here's another chapter and I faced to problem of "do I write initiation now, or later" and … I hate initiation, so I chose later. (unfortunately I don't have the luxury of just skipping over the event kinda like how I did in Wilting) But, I'll write it out hopefully quickly enough. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, please feel free to leave a review telling me what you may or may not have liked.**


	5. Initiation

Ruby sighed to herself as she stepped onto the launch pad. The idea of launching students into the forest was, while amusing, highly impractical. She would do her best to not question the headmaster of Beacon, but she really doubted the worth of being launched into the forest to collect artifacts. The only true bright side she could think of from this situation, is that it let her basically choose her partner. As long as the person was launched before her, then she could easily manipulate her fall to place her in close proximity to them.

The silver-eyed girl smiled to herself as she watched her older sister launch off of the cliff. She would need someone who's already semi-familiar with her situation on her team. Additionally, having Yang as a partner would make it easier to meet with her parents, and she needed to try and spend time with them. It didn't hurt that partnering with Yang would help her convince Yang that she didn't hate the blonde girl. Her smile disappeared as she thought about her first meeting with Yang. There were plenty of ways that could have gone better, but she couldn't bother herself to sound or be more caring at the time. Perhaps, if she had gone through the past ten years clinging to the memory of her family and her times with them, she would have reacted in the way they were hoping for, but she didn't. She had long since lost all of her memories with her family and replaced them with other, less joyful, memories.

A click underneath her brought her attention back the the immediate surroundings as she got launched into the sky and quickly used her body to alter her course so she was following Yang through the air. The blonde had this annoying plan of using her rocket bracelets to help propel her forward, which forced Ruby to use her semblance to convert her body fully into rose petals and gain a little bit of altitude and speed. Eventually, Yang let herself land, and Ruby moved herself so she landed within a few feet of her blonde sister.

Yang, who had started running as soon as she hit the ground, stopped and turned towards the sound of someone else landing right behind her, and seeing Ruby standing there, staring straight at her, she immediately snapped her eyes forward again and froze.

"Yes, Yang, it's me," Ruby deadpanned as she watched Yang's reaction. "Your cruel sister, back to torment you some more."

"I'm sorry, Ruby," Yang said softly while hanging her head. "I'm probably the last person you wanted to be your partner."

"Are you an idiot?" Ruby asked with a glare and a small amount of exasperation present in her voice, earning a questioning look from her sister. "I think you're being an idiot. Let me explain something to you. I can, contrary to apparent popular belief, control how I fly through the sky. It's a neat thing really."

"So-" Yang began hopefully, only to be cut off.

"Yes, Yang," Ruby said with a small smile that wasn't quite genuine. "Out of everyone here, I'd rather be your partner. I hope you don't mind that I made that decision by myself." Ruby then held out her hand towards her older sister and waited for Yang to respond. She felt more than a little awkward when she saw tears of joy falling down her sister's face. This awkwardness only increased when she found herself wrapped tightly in a hug with Yang's face in her shoulder. She didn't really know what to do about that development, and for a while she did nothing. She just stood there with her hand still outstretched as if waiting for a handshake while being hugged and cried on. The silver-eyed girl eventually realized that she was probably supposed to return the hug, and moved to do so. Which, however, did nothing to get rid of the awkwardness she felt. "So... can we go find the relics now?"

The question seemed to bring the blonde-haired sister back to her senses as she backed away and nodded firmly. "Yeah, let's go! Nothing can stop us now!"

Ruby allowed herself a small smile at the lofty claim of her older sister. It wasn't entirely inaccurate, but Ruby wasn't going to help Yang fight a goliath if they ever ran into one. ' _If that happens we might get stopped at some point,'_ Ruby joked to herself.

It wasn't long before the two got to the temple and chose their artifact, which just so happened to be a chess piece. Ruby facepalmed as Yang grabbed whatever chess piece intrigued her the most before the two decided that they wanted to sit and wait to see which students would get to the temple first.

They did not expect six students to arrive almost simultaneously. Especially not when one rode in on an ursa, and another seemed to have been catapulted across the sky, and yet another got chased in by a death stalker. Luckily, the partnership of Blake and Weiss seemed to have a fairly normal entrance. The two girls just casually strode into the clearing before pausing to glance at the redhead known as Pyrrha, who was being chased by the death stalker.

"I'm going to go distract the death stalker. Tell the others to get the artifacts and get ready to run, it seems to be too old for us to kill easily." Ruby told her sister. "And don't worry, I won't get hurt." With those words said, she disappeared in a flurry of rose petals, only to appear moments later between Pyrrha and the death stalker.

Within a second of her appearance, the death stalker attacked her. She moved to avoid all of the incoming attacks from the giant scorpion-like grimm that she faced. Attacking it would be useless unless she could get a clean hit through its eye, but even that was questionable, as her scythe would likely get stuck. For a moment she cursed herself for making Crescent Rose as she had. Crescent Rose, while having more weight behind it compared to her old scythe, was also a wider weapon, making it easier to get stuck in a grimm's armor if she wasn't careful. She almost got punished for her mild distraction in the form of the grimm's stinger flying directly at her face. She quickly sidestepped to the left, before jumping over it's claw that came to grab at her.

She was playing a dangerous game, with a very old grimm. Simply dodging forever was an impossible task, and she'd eventually get hit. She just had to hope that everyone would be ready to run long before that happened. Her mind almost didn't register when the red-haired girl started fighting alongside her. She knew who this person was of course. The girl was Pyrrha Nikos, a exceptionally strong hunter in training who had won the Mistralian tournament multiple times, stood six feet tall while wearing her standard heels, and was a general expert in melee combat. Though she lacked a little bit in ranged combat, and her body's physical endurance was a little lacking, overall, Pyrrha Nikos was registered as a moderate threat if the two were ever to cross paths as enemies. Though that thought was useless for now, as the two were currently fighting side-by-side.

"How do we beat it?" Pyrrha asked nervously, after a few of her attacks failed to even scratch their enemy.

"If we can get it to sit still for a few moments I can kill it, but if not it'd be better if we just ran." Ruby responded calmly as she stared at the death stalker in front of them. Her breathing was still even, a testament to the intensive physical training she had been through, but that didn't help with this. She couldn't magically freeze the creature.

It was at that moment that a large block of ice decided to mystically appear on the back of the death stalker, effectively locking it in place. Ruby needed no further cue as she rushed forward and swung her scythe downward with all the strength she could, while still being reliably accurate. She hit one of it's largest eyes dead-center and Crescent Rose sunk deep into the creature, it would certainly be a fatal wound, though it would take a bit for the creature to die. She immediately dodged the stinger, which came crashing down on her position, but she had to leave her weapon lodged in the creatures eye.

She glared at it challengingly as it attempted to charge her but failed, as it's back half was still encased in ice. The creature glared balefully at her for a few moments before it collapsed and started dissolving into thin air.

"I never did find out why they seemed to have a delayed death whenever you hit them there," she said to herself as she walked forward to pick up Crescent Rose. "I suppose it's a similar thing to bleeding out." She then turned towards the person who was hidden behind the block of ice.

Weiss Schnee. 5'3" when wearing heels, which she was always wearing. Heiress of the Schnee dust company, though seems to have different beliefs than her father. Obviously raised with a bias toward the faunus if her disapproving glances at Ruby's wolf ears were any indication. Her chest was small enough that it wouldn't be a hindrance in combat, though her heels could be if broken. Not very well trained, but skilled enough to take out weaker grimm no problem. Likely has a couple of pride issues. Threat level, low.

"Thanks for the assist," Ruby said as she walked towards the Schnee Heiress. "Probably would have had to run for it if you hadn't helped."

The white-haired heiress gave Ruby a disapproving look. "Then why did you attack it in the first place?" She asked angrily as she took a few steps towards Ruby, who leveled her own withering glare at the approaching girl.

"I attacked it with the intent of giving everyone else the chance to escape, not kill it. Though getting help and killing it worked better than my original plan," Ruby responded with a small amount of venom in her voice. "I'm not so stupid as to be unaware of my own limitations." She continued when she saw the shocked look on Weiss' face. The ex-assassin then walked past the white-haired heiress towards the rest of the group.

"Why would giving us time to run be better than killing it though?" Weiss asked herself quietly, unaware of the redhead that was walking up to her.

"I think," Pyrrha said in response to Weiss' question. "That her reason for making that decision was the death stalker's age. It was older than any grimm I've ever fought before, and it's armor was impossible for me to even scratch. If you could get a good look at it before it disappeared, you'd have realized that it took no damage other than from her scythe lodging itself into its eye."

Weiss gave Pyrrha a questioning look. "But, she'd have to be close to it to know that," she said as she thought about what she could see of the death stalker as it originally approached them. However, she started to feel a little insecure about her response when she was met with silence instead of agreement. "Right?"

"Semblance, sharp eyes, or she saw it beforehand and decided to avoid it," Pyrrha said with a light smile on her face, holding up her hands to count the possibilities she listed. "Or I could be wrong and she just made up a plan on the spot without telling anyone. There's no need to figure it out now, we need to get back to the professors at the cliff."

"Right," Weiss responded, her mind calmed by the suggestions of the redhead. She then turned around to see the rest of the group walking towards her and looked towards Blake. In response the black-haired girl who had become her partner held up a chess piece with a shrug. "The relics are chess pieces?"

"Not like they could use actual relics to test us," Blake responded.

"If they did," Ruby joined in as she walked by. "I'd be tempted to break mine, just to see their reaction."

 **A/N**

 **Hey guys. You know, I promised myself that I wouldn't let this chapter be a short chapter… and then I realized that it was initiation, and my hatred of initiation took over, and I procrastinated, writing only every now and then and only for an hour or so at a time… and now today I'm like "No, I've made them wait long enough. They deserve another chapter, and one much better than this… but I can't improve it due to my distaste of initiation as a whole."**

 **Hopefully you guys will be happy to note that, I'm not past initiation, which means that the next chapter should come more easily. Which should hopefully mean that I will be able to write a longer chapter, and maybe improve on the overall writing, as I know I'm not the best writer and I'm always looking for ways to improve.**

 **Hope you're all doing good. Have a great day everyone, and please leave a review about what you liked, didn't like, and what you feel I could improve on.**


	6. Conversations

**Chapter 6 -**

It had been a week since initiation had been completed and teams formed. Ruby, Yang, Blake, and Weiss had formed the team known as RWBY, with Ruby herself as the leader. At first, Weiss seemed a little put off by the fact that she wasn't made the team leader but, despite Ruby's preparations for a confrontation, soon calmed down and seemed to accept the situation.

Nothing else of note happened as the week passed. There were plenty of attempts on Yang's part to have the team get to know each other better, but between the hectic schedule of all the classes going through all of the starting paperwork and schedule handouts, learning their way around campus, and the other three team members just not being that social, she hadn't had any luck. Which honestly was a good thing in Ruby's eyes, as there was bound to be tension for the first few times the team actually got to sit down and talk. Might as well postpone that until they had more time to diffuse the tension.

That was in the back of Ruby's mind, right now though, she had far more pressing issues. Like the fact that she was currently heading toward Ozpin's office to discuss some important findings she had uncovered. She found herself in an odd position at the moment. On one hand, this was all information that she had access to before she quit as an assassin, however, she hadn't looked into any of it until her time at Beacon started, and she wasn't sure how Ozpin was going to respond to that. She knew he'd understand that her old lifestyle wouldn't just disappear overnight, but she didn't know if he'd try to force her to give up information gathering after this.

The atmosphere was tense in Ozpin's office as Ruby entered the room. She had expected as much though, as she had called an 'urgent' meeting in order to discuss several students, and her expected actions toward them. Scanning the room, she found herself alone with Glynda, and Ozpin. Which was to be expected, Glynda Goodwitch had always been there for any meeting between her and Ozpin. At first, she had assumed it was an odd show of power on their part, but in reality, Ozpin was simply keeping Glynda in the loop, as a form of backup should he need to leave for a period of time.

"Well," Ozpin said slowly as Ruby approached his desk. "You're the one who called this meeting. It seems fitting that you're the one who starts it."

"Alright then," Ruby said, her eyes all but glaring at Ozpin to project how serious she was. "There are two students at Beacon Academy who, in my past career, would have been labeled as targets of high interest. Do you know who these students are?"

"I do," Ozpin replied with a nod and a smile. "Would you like to give me details on them? Just in case we're thinking of different students?"

"Of course," the silver-eyed reaper responded. "One student, Blake Belladonna, former White Fang operative, and is reported to formerly be a highly trusted friend to the rebel factions leader, Adam Taurus." She paused to see how the two people in the room received that information, and seeing no change in their demeanor she decided to continue. "And Coco Adel. She would be classified as high priority due to the fact that she has cemented herself in the underground information network of Vale. So much so that her information about local underground activities and people, is as reliable, if not more so, than my own."

"Is that true?" Glynda asked, her face showing a level of concern. "Is Miss Adel's information network that strong?"

"It is," Ruby answered with a nod. "It took me a while to figure that out, as she does almost nothing with it other than keep tabs on everything. Though I have reason to believe, that if push came to shove, she'd use her intel to help Vale, rather than hurt Vale. That being said, what do you want me to do in regards to these two students?"

"From what I just heard," Ozpin began with a small smile forming on his lips. "You just told us that we have a student who know a little more than is necessary, and another student who needs to re-evaluate her past choices in significant others. How will you proceed?"

"I currently have no reason to eliminate them." Ruby said matter-of-factly. "I am no longer an assassin, and they have yet to do anything to bring harm to my team. So I have no reason to interfere with them."

"Good," Ozpin said with a smile. "I'm glad you've decided that you're not going to bully your fellow classmates. You are dismissed, Miss Rose, have a nice day."

"Have a good day, Professor Ozpin, and you as well, Professor Goodwitch," Ruby responded as she turned to walk back towards the elevator. Judging from their lack of reactions, either the two of them had the most impressive poker faces she'd ever come across, or they were perfectly aware of everything she'd brought up. Either way, they had just earned a lot of respect from the silver-eyed ex-assassin.

* * *

Later that night, in team RWBY's dorm, Yang was getting more and more frustrated by the absolute silence that seemed to plague the dorm. She had tried over the short couple of days that the team had been together to get everyone to talk and get to know each other, but none of them seemed to interested. Her sister, Ruby, would be polite, but wouldn't go out of her way to speak, and obviously didn't care too much for making friends. Weiss was more emotionally invested in her studies than in any single person on Remnant, and Blake was simply a very quiet person.

This all added up to repeated failures on Yang's part to get the team to actually talk and become friends, and it was frustrating her to no end. Her parents had always told her that your teammates at Beacon should become your best friends for the entirety of your life, people that you could rely on, and trust in. Yet if things continued to go this way, the four of them would graduate, and the only person she'd ever talk to again would be Ruby, and that's mostly because Ruby was trying to give her family a chance. Something that Yang realized was more awkward for Ruby than it was for her, as Ruby felt no attachment to them, and therefore had to build her feelings for her family from scratch.

She knew all of this, and yet the frustration was still building up inside of her. The suffocating silence only serving to fuel said frustration until she had to do something about it. "Alright," she finally said. "As a team, we _need_ to talk to each other, and get to know each other." She hadn't realized how close to shouting she had been, but the extra volume of her voice served to grab the attention of everyone else in the dorm.

For a few agonizing seconds, no one said a thing. Until a soft sigh was heard from Yang's sister's bed, which was suspended from the ceiling above Weiss' own bed. "Then talk," Ruby said, irritation lacing her voice. Earning odd looks from her three teammates. "Talk! You want us to talk and get to know each other. Yet all you do is sit there and complain about how we're _not_ doing that, when you're not either. If you want to start sharing time, do so, we're here, we'll listen, and we'll follow suit when you're done."

Yang felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment at realizing her own part to play in the situation, and how she could have helped fix it much earlier. "Well," the blonde said awkwardly. "My name is Yang Xiao-Long. My weapons are Ember Celica, two gauntlets that launch burn dust when I punch. I'm Ruby's older sister. My semblance is the ability to store energy when I get hit, and use that energy to hit harder. Umm, there's not much to note after that I guess. I'm only average in studies due to having a hard time learning in a classroom environment, though I excel in combat classes due to being a part in a lot of brawls at Signal. My favorite color is yellow, I love my hair, umm… that's it I guess, this is harder than I thought it would be."

Rolling her eyes at her older sister's final comment Ruby jumped down from her bed. "My name is Ruby Rose and, as Yang said earlier, I'm her younger sister. My weapon, made specifically for slaying grimm, is Crescent Rose. A high calibre sniper-rifle merged with a scythe. I can use the recoil the assist with short jumps, and the rounds are strong enough to take out most types of grim in a single, well-placed, shot. My semblance at its most basic, is the ability to make myself move faster. My favorite colors are red and Black. You'll find that I do just fine in both academics as well as combat assessments. I don't care much for my hair, but that doesn't mean you can cut it as you please. Also, as you're my teammates, I guess you should know that I was kidnapped when I was five, and have only recently been recovered. So you'll have to forgive me for being… blunt."

Ruby suddenly found herself the center of attention, as two of her teammates were staring at her with a mixture of concern and sorrow. A mixture of emotions that irritated Ruby. She had no problems with her past. Sure it wasn't the ideal past, and if she were to go through it again, she would probably try her best to _not_ get kidnapped. However, she had friends that were with her throughout her life, and her life could have been much worse. Still, the red-tipped brunette endured the stares from her teammates for a few moments, waiting for one of them to start talking, and when it became evident that neither of them were going to, she looked toward the raven-haired girl on her team. "Blake, your turn."

"Ah, right," Blake said, as she blinked several time to stop herself from staring at Ruby. "My name is Blake Belladonna. My weapon is Gambol Shroud, it's a mixture of a pistol, a ribbon, a katana, and a cleaver. My semblance, is the ability to make clones to take my place, while also propelling myself in a direction. I like the color black, and I love reading books, specifically fantasy stories. I don't know how I'll do in academics or combat classes, but I am confident I can hold my own at least."

"I suppose that means it's my turn," Weiss said after a few moments had passed. She stood from her position at her desk, and pushed her white hair over her shoulder, as she was letting it fall in front of her while she was sitting. "My name is Weiss Schnee, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. My weapon is Myrtenaster, a rapier with dust chambers, allowing me to channel different kinds of dust at will with minimal effort. My semblance is glyphs. Using varying amounts and types of dust, and aura, I can use my glyphs to create a multitude of different effects. Suffice to say, that if you can think of something you want done, I can do it with a glyph. My favorite color is an icy blue. I don't have many hobbies, though you will find me spending most of my free time studying, and I'd appreciate being given an appropriate amount of time to do so on a daily basis. I expect to be at the top of the academics classes, and at least the upper half of the combat classes."

"Good," Ruby said with a half-smile on her face that somehow didn't portray any happiness at all. "So we talked, and we know more about each other. Now we have a different issue, we need to trust each other. As such, I'd like each of you to come up with three activities, one hangout activity, one training activity, and one study activity. When all four of us have done so, we'll make a vote on whose activity we want to go through with for each of the categories. However, we can't vote for ourselves. I already have my three thought up."

"If we only pick three activities, then we can't pick an activity from every person," Weiss said, confused. "How can we learn to trust each other, if we don't pick an activity from everyone?"

"The purpose of this exercise is to see who we trust, and if they really deserve it. We'll work on building more trust later. Let me know when you're done thinking up your activities," Ruby said while climbing back onto her bed. "Then we'll vote, and we'll go through with one of them tomorrow, then one the following day, and one the day after that."

It only took the three teammates around thirty minutes to plan out their three activities. It was an odd thing them, to know they were planning multiple activities, when there was a chance that none of the ones they were planning were actually going to happen. They did it anyway, and then told Ruby that they were done planning. After hearing that, the youngest girl on the team jumped off of her bed and walked to the center of the room.

"Alright, here's how this is gonna work, we're all gonna stand in a diamond shape, all of us facing toward the middle, and you three are going to memorize who's on what side of you, and then close your eyes. Then I'm going to mention an activity type, and you're going to point at the person, or in their direction at least, that whose idea you want to go through with." The silver-eyed girl eyed her three teammates, who were already getting into position. "Understand?"

She received three affirmations that her teammates understood as they finished getting into position, looked around to see who was where, and then all three of them closed their eyes.

"Alright, Study activity," Ruby called out, and saw that Weiss was pointing straight forward, at Ruby, while the other two were pointing at Weiss. "Three to one, Weiss get's to lead that activity." She watched as a small smile found its way onto Weiss' face as the heiress realized that her team trusted her study habits.

"Next, hangout activity," Ruby said, doubting that the other three would come to a decision. To her great annoyance, she was right. Yang had decided to vote for Blake. Weiss was pointing at Yang, which was a surprise to the team leader, and Blake was pointing at Ruby. The red-tipped brunette almost let out a sigh of annoyance at having to be a tie-breaker in this competition, but ultimately decided to go with Yang's decision. "Blake, you're in charge of the hangout."

"Finally, training activity," Ruby said, and found herself surprised at how quickly her team decided on who to vote for, and unanimously. "Three to one, Yang. You get to do our training excercise. You all can open your eyes now." She waited a moment to let her team open their eyes and relax a little bit. "So, who wants to go tomorrow?"

"I can," Yang said. "It's a equipmentless exercise, so I don't need to grab anything, and we don't need to go to the gym. Just need a little area to ourselves, and I have a good idea of where we can go."

"Alright," Ruby responded with a nod. "Blake can you do the day after that? Just to give us a day of rest." Upon receiving a nod from the raven haired member of her team Ruby turned to Weiss. "Are you okay with going last?"

"Of course, it just gives me more time to flush out my plan after all," the white-haired heiress responded proudly.

"Good," the red-tipped brunette said with a nod. "Then, as we have classes tomorrow morning, I'm going to go to sleep. Have a good night everyone."

 **A/N**

 **Hey everyone! This chapter is so far the longest of LTH I believe. Coming in at around 2.7k words. Though the plan for the next chapter is to cover all three events, so it will most likely be longer than this chapter even. Which is fine with me. I'm trying to work on writing more consistently, and if any of you have read Wilting, you might remember me saying that my goal is to get to 10k word chapters. As it is, I can't possibly write a 10k word chapter and feel good about myself making you guys wait that long. However, I plan on slowly working my way there, and if they start getting to the point where you guys feel like they're just dragging on, then I'll stop trying to make my chapters longer. Nyway, some people are saying that Ruby accepted her family really quickly. Yes and no. She doesn't care about her family, or really anyone that we've seen in the story thus far. However, she understands that acting as if they mean nothing to her is likely to cause issues, so she will try to bridge the gap between them. Just like with her team. She'd personally be perfectly content to not say a single word to any of them throughout their entire stay at Beacon, however she realizes that, especially as a leader, she needs to communicate with them and form a relatively healthy relationship with them. So she decided to make the second scene of this chapter happen, though it took a little bit of prodding from Yang to finally annoy her enough to make her intervene directly. So just so all of you know, Ruby generally doesn't care, she may show surprise, but as of right now, she doesn't care. You may or may not see that change as this story progresses. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a review or a PM with anything you liked, or disliked, about the chapter. I'm always open to constructive criticism. :)**


	7. Run Until You Drop

Yang was feeling mildly nervous as she went throughout the day. Sure she was most definitely the biggest fitness buff on team RWBY, but that didn't mean she knew everything there was to know about exercise or how to train specific muscles. She knew how to lift weights, do squats and some relatively intense cardio workouts, and while she'd love to see her team try to lift weights, it really wouldn't help any of her teammates with their respective combat styles unless they wanted to become a brawler like her. So instead she settled on the cardio workouts that she was familiar the thought that cardio is always useful, both for building up endurance and for self control.

As Yang went throughout her day, she couldn't help but second guess herself, and she was absolutely positive that the rest of her team was doubting her as well, but Ruby had said it was unanimous. The few times she glanced toward her teammates, she never saw doubt in their eyes, the worst she saw was a kind of cautious unease in Weiss' eyes, as if the heiress felt that Yang would run her into the dust.

In the end, Yang felt the pressure fall on her shoulders as team RWBY's last class of the day ended. Looking up she saw her three teammates standing in front of her desk, waiting for her to guide them to their training location. Repressing her internal doubts, the blonde stood up and started leading her team. The walk wasn't very long, only fifteen minutes, though it felt longer. The location she led them to though, was her little treasure. Yang loved being loud and obnoxious, she loved being a part of the group, and she loved it when people were paying attention to her, but surprisingly to many, she also loved quiet places. Everywhere she went, she'd find a quiet place somewhere, and she'd always hold that place close to her heart. This was the place she'd found for that at Beacon. A decent sized clearing behind one of the buildings. It wasn't anything fancy, just a small clearing with a concrete walkway along the side of it that, she assumed, led to an old school building that has long since been taken down and rebuilt elsewhere. She loved it because it was well cared for, and because of the absolute silence that reigned here, almost as if the building itself was working to prevent any outside noises from reaching the clearing.

Yang smiled as she turned to face her team. "This is the spot," she said happily. Her teammates nodded in response, and she saw a questioning look form on the heiress face. "We're just going to be running today. I figured since I couldn't help each of you develop the specific muscles you'll need in combat, instead I'd help you increase your stamina. We're going to run until we can't run anymore, and then we're going to use our time today as a benchmark to compare ourselves to in the future."

Ruby nodded in understanding, her silver eyes darting around as she looked at the clearing. "When do you want us to start?" Her voice sounded so innocent and soft that Yang had to do a double take to make sure it had been her sister who spoke. Ever since Yang had been reunited with her younger sister, Ruby's voice had always held a detached and cold feeling to it. It felt nice to know that she could still sound so innocent, even if it was almost certainly faked.

Yang noticed that her other two teammates also glanced at Ruby in surprise, but ultimately decided to not question it. She decided to follow their lead and not to question it either. The blond chose instead to enjoy the memories that her sister's voice brought to her mind. "Whenever we're all ready, I'll set up a stopwatch and we'll record the time whenever someone has to stop."

"Sounds good," the silver-eyed team leader responded, her tone back to its normal businesslike indifference. She then quickly got into a sprinter's stance and waited for the signal to start running.

The other members of team RWBY quickly joined their leader, though not getting into a sprinter's stance, they all prepared to start running. A blonde head turned back to make sure everyone was prepared, before she finally started counting. "Three, two, one … GO"

With that shout the four girls took off from their positions. Ruby in an obvious lead as she led her team around the clearing over and over again. She never lapped them though, or even get too far ahead of them. She instead got a good four or five seconds ahead of the rest of her team before slowing down to their speed, as if she was trying to encourage them to keep going. Or possibly trying to insult their speed. Yang much preferring to believe it was the first of the two.

To Blake, it had both effects. Ruby being so far ahead of the black-haired girl lit a fire in her, as her own pride in her speed and agility crushed was by Ruby, who seemingly effortlessly, claimed the lead and kept it so steadily. She used her disappointment to push herself harder and harder, and while she eventually pulled ahead of both Yang and Weiss, but she still never got any closer to the shorter team leader.

Weiss instead took it in a completely different way, her mind taking an oddly philosophical turn, which hadn't been expected, even for her. She saw the distance between Ruby and the rest of the team as a symbol of the distance between them socially. Why should Ruby go out of her way to run alongside her teammates, if she didn't even call them friends in the first place? The white-haired heiress would have sighed to herself, if she hadn't been running. This was the kind of thing Yang had been yelling at them about, and, unfortunately for Weiss, she had to admit that the blonde was right. The distance between the four of them was entirely unacceptable, and even worse, she had no small part to play in it herself.

The team continued running, every member somewhere between a jog and a sprint, for the better part of an hour. The quiet of the small clearing only interrupted by their footfalls and heavy breathing. It was a somehow relatively surreal experience for the team, as it was the first time they did anything together other than spend time in silence in their dorm. Of course, due to the nature of their exercise, it had to eventually come to an end eventually. This end was signalled by Weiss, of all things, face-planting into the dirt after one of her legs gave out on her. Panting heavily she rolled over several times, to ensure she wasn't in the way of her teammates as they ran on, before simply lying on the ground in an attempt to gain her strength back.

Ruby heard her teammate fall, it was hard not to with the combination of her faunus ears and the relative quiet of the area. She slowed down, allowing Yang and Blake to catch up, and even pass her. "I'm going to go check up on Weiss, you two keep running." She said calmly, her breathing hardly labored at all. The silver-eyed girl then turned around and jogged lightly until she stood next to Weiss, who looked up at her questioningly.

"You know," Ruby began calmly, a small grin that showed no amusement present on her face. "You probably should have stopped before you collapsed. What if someone wanted to kidnap you right now?"

A short laugh, that sounded more like an exaggerated exhale, escaped Weiss. Her blue eyes showing no concern as she looked up at her team leader. "I guess," she began through panted breaths. "They'd have to deal with my angry glares."

"Such a weapon should be kept a secret," Ruby said with a soft chuckle as she sat down next to her fallen teammate. "We wouldn't want our enemies to become immune to it."

"Why'd you stop running to check on me?" The exhausted heiress asked with surprise. "I doubt you're anywhere close to needing to stop yourself."

"You're right," the red-tipped brunette responded while investigating her clothes. "I'm only slightly winded I guess, but I've been training my endurance since I was five. If you three could match my endurance I'd be pretty bad at training. As for why I'm here," she paused, as if she was trying to come up with a reason. "I need to care about my teammates."

"You need to care?" Weiss asked incredulously.

The younger girl nodded as she turned her head to look at the two teammates who were still running. "I know you've noticed. I'm emotionally detached to an extreme degree. I simply don't care about most anything. However, you're my team, and as your leader I need to care about you, at least to the extent that I'd go out of my way to keep you healthy and unharmed. Alive would be nice as well."

"Pretty sure if we died we would be neither healthy, or unharmed," Weiss responded sarcastically, just starting to gain some control of her breathing. "So you hold no love for us, why fake it?"

"It's less about faking it, and more about fulfilling my duty as the team leader. If I end up actually caring for the three of you along the way, it could simply be considered an added benefit."

Weiss nodded to herself. Ruby's explanation made perfect sense to the heiress. "May I ask one more question?"

"If it's something I feel like answering," Ruby responded with a nod.

"Why do you seem to … fake different emotions at random times? Like earlier you went out of your way to make yourself sound totally innocent. I've seen you fake being an overly curious person, and I've even seen you fake amusement."

Silver eyes looked at Weiss, betraying no emotion as they did so. In fact, it almost felt to Weiss as if they were the eyes of a machine. "It's almost like, trying on clothes to see which one fits you the best. I'm not an overly social person, so I need to figure out what kind of personality to 'wear' when I'm not around people I care about or trust. I'm still in the process of figuring it out, or even deciding whether or not I actually should forge a personality just for that. Don't worry though, as my team, I'm required to trust you, so other than short spurts, I won't really fake anything around you three."

"Yes, because I'm not supposed to worry about my team leader trying to develop one of the most unhealthy social habits of all time," Weiss responded dryly, earning an amused look from Ruby. "I may not be educated in psychology, but even I know that that has to be unhealthy." She waited for a response from Ruby, but got only a soft chuckle in response. After a few seconds she forced herself to sit up, "I'm alright, you can go back to running."

"No need, Blake just collapsed in a face-plant that I imagine was as glorious as your own," Ruby deadpanned, which earned a light embarrassed blush from Weiss. "I suppose Yang will stop now, as we're gonna need to carry both you and Blake back to the dorm."

Ruby was proven right when the blonde member of the team ran up to the two of them and asked, "Ruby, can you help Weiss walk back to the dorm?"

Ruby nodded. "I can," she said as she stood back up. Yang then turned and jogged back to Blake, who was still laying on the ground, breathing heavily.

"I can walk by myself," Weiss said confidently before trying to get up, and failing. "In a few minutes when I've recovered, anyhow."

"You didn't collapse because you ran out of willpower, Weiss. You collapsed because your muscles couldn't take anymore. That's not gonna recover 'in a few minutes.'"

A sigh escaped Weiss' lips. "Okay, help me up, I guess it'd be better to rest on my bed."

Ruby reached down, and lifted Weiss onto her feet before looping the heiress' arm over her shoulders and behind her head, and wrapping her arm around Weiss' waist to help support her. "This way," she said softly. "You can at least pretend you're supporting some of your own weight. I also felt that you probably wouldn't appreciate a princess carry."

"Your feelings were completely right."

A small grin found its way onto Ruby's face for a moment, before she started walking with Weiss toward their dorm. On their way, they passed by a faunus with rabbit ears. The girl was wearing a brown coat, and shorts of the same color, over a body fitting black shirt, and similar black tights. She completed her outfit with some bronze colored highlights, which included her shoes, a belt, a pair of pauldrons, and some bracelets. She had the deepest brown eyes, and moderately dark brown hair.

"Are you okay?" The rabbit faunus asked softly as she approached the two after realizing how exhausted Weiss seemed to be. Ruby found it interesting how obvious it was that she cared, despite the fact that she didn't even know either of them.

"I'm fine," Weiss responded though her voice was soft from exhaustion.

"She pushed herself too far during training," Ruby added when the faunus' look of concern didn't lessen at all.

"Oh, okay," came the response from the brunette faunus. "Well, I'm Velvet Scarlatina, is there anything I can do for you two?"

Ruby took a second to think. "Could you get us some accelerade? I have some money t in my left pocket. Could you please take that and grab some from the store for us?"

Weiss looked at her team leader in disbelief. "You're just going to trust a random person with taking money from you and returning?"

"Yup, it's not like I can't find her if she doesn't bring us the accelerade."

"I can do that," Velvet said with a smile, interrupting Weiss before she could argue any more. "What's your dorm number? I'll bring it by there."

"Cool, thank you," Ruby said with a nod. "Though you're going to have to reach into my pocket to grab my wallet. Our dorm is number 27."

The rabbit faunus did so, doing her best to make it the least awkward possible, before taking the money out of Ruby's wallet, and placing the wallet back into Ruby's pocket. "I'll be there as soon as I can"

With that, Velvet left the two behind, as she raced off to acquire gatorade for the two.

"I still can't believe you'd trust her when you don't even know her," Weiss said sourly.

"I don't," Ruby responded calmly. "However, if she ends up being trustworthy, then it's a win-win situation. Plus, my wallet had nothing but money in it, and it's not even close to a fraction of my total savings. I had nothing to lose."

The two continued the rest of their walk in silence. Weiss found it odd that she had been able to have actual conversations with their team leader before she had one with her other teammates, but then she remembered that she hadn't really tried before. Neither had Ruby though, and that brought an idea to Weiss' mind. She generally wouldn't go out of her way to start conversations with them, but she's willing to talk. It spoke volumes about how social they had, or rather hadn't, been as a team, that she'd never seen Ruby talking to anyone, other than at least responding to Yang yelling at all of them for being anti-social.

Weiss and Ruby shared a moment of surprise when they got to their dorm almost a half-hour later, and found a grocery bag full of accelerade bottles hanging for their room's dornob. A smile found its way onto Ruby's face as she took the bag and opened the door. "I suppose Velvet was trustworthy after all, you should thank her the next time you see her. These are all for you and Blake afterall."

 **A/N**

 **Hey Everyone, how's it going? Sorry it took a little while to write this chapter. I didn't expect it to be so … boring to write a chapter about team RWBY running. (Though I guess that shouldn't have been a big surprise.) One thing that I loved while writing this, was that when I got to the part where Weiss face-planted, Carry On My Wayward Son by the band Kansas started playing from my writing playlist. Yup I have a playlist for writing, 'cause music helps me calm down and concentrate. The playlist is about 200 songs long, in case you care. (I need more songs for it.)**

 **Nyway, how'd you like the chapter? Did I do a good job of making it… not boring to read? Any issues you find in the chapter? Anything you think I could do better? If you have a response to any of those questions, please feel free to PM me or leave a review and let me know. :) Before anyone really asks, yes, I know I keep mentioning Ruby's faunus ears even though you all should be fully aware she has them by this point in the story, but that's because I want there to be a constant reminder that they're there, despite the fact that she was born a human in this story (and considers herself a human rather than a faunus.) That's it for now, hope you all have had a great day and enjoyed the chapter!**

 **Shoutout to SecretlySilentEvil for creating the name of Accelerade in replacement of Gatorade. He saved this chapter. Literally.**


	8. Questions and Answers

It was the final class of the day, combat training, and the members of Team RWBY were waiting anxiously for the announcement of who would be fighting who. The class was extra long to give time for more spars, but it still wasn't even close to guaranteed that everyone would have a chance every class, and while most people were okay with not sparring every class period, it was still unclear who the strongest person in the class was, other than Pyrrha of course, as no one had seen Ruby fight yet. So when Glynda Goodwitch entered the classroom, which consisted of an oversized arena that had raised seating and entrances both into the seating area and the arena area, everyone stopped talking, waiting to hear the name of the one person in the class who had yet to fight.

"I have no announcements for you today," Glynda said professionally, standing in the arena in the center of all the raised seating that the students occupied. "So we'll get right to the first match of the day. Ruby Rose will be fighting against, Jaune Arc."

Almost immediately Ruby was down in the arena, having used her semblance to get there. She didn't have Cresent Rose on her, but she also didn't seem too concerned about that fact. She smiled a little bit as Jaune slowly made his way down to the arena and took his position across from her.

"Don't worry Jaune," the silver-eyed girl said quietly enough so that no one other than Glynda and Jaune could hear. A smile still present on her face. "It'll be over quick."

Jaune almost responded by saying 'thank you,' but something about the way Ruby said that made him pause long enough for Glynda to declare the beginning of the match. It however didn't take him long to realize that the dread growing in his stomach wasn't unjustified.

Immediately after Glynda's declaration, Ruby sprung into action. Faster than most people could ever hope to follow, she moved behind Jaune and grabbed his arm. She then spun herself for a few seconds, though nobody could really tell how many rotations she had made, as she was using her semblance to speed up the process, before launching Jaune at full speed at the walls that surrounded the arena.

The air screamed in protest as Jaune flew towards the wall. The sound even making several people wince in pain. It didn't last long, not even a full second after Ruby released him, before he collided head first into the wall, smashing into it and sending pieces of concrete flying into the air as his body carved a small crater into the wall. The thud of the impact echoed through the arena and seating areas a couple of times before anyone reacted.

"Mr. Arc's aura is in the red," Glynda called out, her normally impassive voice a little shaky. "Miss. Rose has won this match."

As Ruby was walking, at a normal pace, back to her seat, Glynda called out. "Ms. Rose, please take Mr. Arc to the infirmary, I'll expect you back in your seat by the end of class."

Moving to do as she was told, Ruby turned around and walked towards Jaune, who was lying limp on the ground, conscious, but only barely so. "I expect you to be more lenient in the future, Miss. Rose." The blonde teacher said quietly as Ruby walked by. A small smile graced Ruby's lips as she picked Jaune up and left the classroom, not bothering to respond to her teacher's request.

* * *

Blake had a nervous smile as team RWBY returned to their dorm after combat class ended. Her idea for a social activity was an awkward one at best, but it was the only thing she had been able to think of. She had asked for five questions from each of her teammates, added five of her own, and then printed off four copies of each of the questions. The intent was to give each member of the team their own copy of the questions, write down their answers, and then hand them to another member of the team to read out loud. It was an exercise that she didn't necessarily like, but the idea was to allow the teammates to get to know each other better, as opposed to just having a good time. Having one very awkward moment now, should hopefully make it easier for them to hang out and have fun together in the future.

Blake entered the dorm and headed straight to her desk to grab the four pieces of paper she had printed out. She then turned around to face each of the members of her team. "I felt it was more important for us to get to know each other better, rather than having fun today. So I thought of a little 'get to know each other' exercise. Each of us gave five questions, that I've put down on four sheets of paper, and we're all going to write down our answers to the questions, before handing the papers over to someone else for them to read." She paused for a moment to look at the faces of her teammates. "Is everyone okay with this?"

After a quick series of affirmations from her teammates, the four members of team RWBY all sat down and prepared to read the sheets of paper and write their answers.

Team RWBY Questions

R

In one word, what is your biggest weakness?

What is your greatest strength?

If you could upgrade your weapon, what would you do?

What small grimm would be most difficult for you to defeat?

Favorite type of cookie?

W

What is your favorite kind of music?

What hobbies do you have?

What is your favorite color?

How would you describe yourself?

What was your home like?

B

What is your favorite book?

What is your opinion on Faunus?

How did you learn to fight?

Have you ever been seriously injured?

Why did you want to become a Huntress?

Y

How old were you when you had your first crush, and who was it on?

What is your most embarrassing memory?

What are your future plans?

Who is the most attractive person in Beacon?

How would you describe your fighting style?

The four girls began quickly answering the various questions on the papers they received. Each of them had a couple of small reactions as they read the questions displayed. Weiss gave a small look of respect to Ruby, and a disapproving glare to Yang. Yang gave a confused look toward her white-haired teammate as she wasn't expecting the questions that Weiss had asked. Blake gave small nods to Ruby, and Weiss, while pointedly not looking at Yang as she wrote down her answers. Ruby simply nodded as she read through the questions she was answering, though at one point she stopped, and leveled a glare at her older sister.

After a couple of minutes, all four of the teammates stopped writing, and handed their papers to a different teammate. Weiss handed hers to Yang. Yang handed her paper to Blake, and Blake handed hers to Weiss, who ended up trading with Ruby.

"What the heck Weiss?" Yang said after a moment of looking at Weiss' paper. "These aren't answers, this is like a miniature essay."

"Yang," Ruby said with a small grin. "Some people who have a stricter education, like to give their answers in complete sentences."

Upon seeing Weiss give a nod in response to Ruby's comment, Yang simply looked back at her paper and sighed. "So, who goes first?"

"That doesn't really matter, as long as we all read. I guess we can go Ruby, Weiss, myself, and then Yang," Blake said, her amber eyes looking at each of her teammates as she said their names. "If that's okay with everyone."

When no one voice any opposition to the order, Ruby held Blake's paper up in front of her, and began to read.

"Blake's answers are: My greatest weakness is, my past. My greatest strength is, my agility. If I could upgrade my weapon, I'd make it so it could shoot small explosive darts. I'd have a hard time beating a boarbatusk by myself. Chocolate chip?" Ruby reached out to give Blake a soft pat on the back before continuing. "My favorite kind of music is indie music. I like to read books, and relax in the sunlight. My favorite color is dark purple. I would describe myself as an introvert. My home is on the outskirts of Vale, and it's a peaceful place. My favorite book is The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I learned to fight from one of my childhood friends. I've never been seriously injured, and I want to help the world be as peaceful as my home is. I've never had a crush. I almost had my childhood friend walk in on me in the bathroom. I plan on becoming a huntress, and then I'll go from there. Coco Adel is the most attractive person in Beacon. I would describe my fighting style as dancing around my opponent's attacks and my attacking their weak spots." Ruby paused for a few moments. "That's the last answer, should we comment on it now, or wait until after everyone's had theirs read?"

"We can comment now."

"Okay," the silver-eyed team leader said. "Congrats on enjoying the best kind of cookie. Though what did you mean by your past being your biggest weakness?"

"Umm… thanks?" Blake responded, mild confusion hinted in her voice. "I've had some bad things happen in my past, and let's just say I have a couple of monsters following me around."

Weiss raised her hand a little bit before speaking up. "What is indie music?"

"Music made by small, independent bands. I guess you could call it rookie music," Blake answered.

After a few moments of no one commenting Ruby spoke up. "Next to read is Weiss."

The white-haired huntress in training nodded "Right, Ruby's answers. My weakness is pain, my strength is speed, plasma scythe, the only small grimm that would take more than a minimal amount of effort to defeat would be a boarbatusk, and my favorite type of cookies is chocolate chip cookies. I hardly listen to music, but I guess my favorite kind of music is metal, I like running and building weapons or machines, my favorite color is crimson, I would describe myself as cold, and my home was a lab. I haven't read any books in a long while, I don't mind faunus, I was professionally trained to fight, I have not been seriously injured, and General Ironwood asked me if I was willing to be a huntress after he found me, I said yes. I was 10, and Ice Cream was the subject of my crush, I had a bowl of melted ice cream dumped on me right after I got out of the shower, I plan to become the best huntress I can, and stop the white fang from further terrorist actions, you're not as pretty as you think, Yang, and my fighting style is ruthless."

"Wait," Yang said, holding up a hand and eyeing her silver-eyed sister in disbelief. "You had a crush on ice cream?"

"Yep," was the simple response that Ruby gave, not bothering to elaborate further.

"What about your greatest weakness being pain?" Blake asked quietly looking at Ruby with concern.

The small scythe wielder sighed and reached up to her faunus ears. "I'm sure you've probably guessed, but I wasn't born with these ears. They were implanted when I was younger. I'm not even sure if they're real faunus ears, taken from some unsuspecting and unfortunate faunus somewhere, or if they're really well-made robotic ears. All I know, is that using some science that I have no real grasp of, they work, and occasionally they hurt, a lot. Enough so to distract me in combat if I'm not careful."

The dorm room was silent for a moment as Weiss, Blake, and Yang all tried to process what Ruby had just told them.

"Next?" Ruby asked the group, and a few moments later the three nodded and Blake raised her paper to read Yang's responses.

"Yang's answers are, what weakness? My brute strength, larger missiles, creepers as for whatever reason, they're resistant to explosions, macadamia nut cookies. I like pop, punk, and rap music, I like going to the gym, my favorite color is Yellow, I would describe myself as outgoing and friendly, and my home is a peaceful little place with some of the best fighters around defending it from any threat. I don't read anymore, I don't mind the faunus, my dad taught me to fight, I have broken my arm once, and I wanted to become a huntress to hopefully find my sister. My first crush was when I as 11, and I have since forgotten his name. I don't really have any embarrassing memories. I want to become a singer like my mom. I am, of course. I'm a boxer."

"Yang, your weakness is overconfidence, and again, you're not as pretty as you think you are," Ruby said with a hint of annoyance lining her voice. She said it in as kind a tone as she could, but the glare she shot her sister as she was speaking was anything but kind.

"Alright Rubes, whatever you say," Yang responded lightly, her smile only slightly wavering.

"Why don't you read anymore?" Blake asked, looking at Yang with a neutral expression.

"I used to read bedtime stories to Ruby all the time, when she got kidnapped, I stopped," Yang responded softly, pointedly not looking at any of her teammates.

The blonde member of team RWBY waited for a couple of seconds before picking up Weiss' answers and beginning to read them. "Weiss' answers are: If I were to describe my biggest weakness in one word, I'd have to say it was overthinking. My greatest strength in combat would be the precision with which I could strike my opponent's weaknesses, and the adaptability of my arsenal, courtesy of Myrtenaster's multiple dust chambers. If I could upgrade my weapon, I would make it so that the dust chambers were less tricky to refill. A boarbatusk would be the most difficult of the smaller grimm for me to defeat. I've never had too many different types of cookies, but I would say that my favorite is chocolate chip. My favorite kind of music to listen to is classical or choir music. I enjoy reading books, and studying. My favorite color is ice blue. I would describe myself as the perfect heiress, I'm orderly, intelligent, and very punctual. My home so far has been the Schnee Mansion, in which I was raised and trained to be the perfect heiress for the SDC. I can't say I have a favorite book, but my favorite kind of books are about philosophy. My opinion on the Faunus is complicated. I don't particularly hate every faunus in the world, however I can't help but despise what the White Fang has done in the recent past. I learned to fight from my older sister, Winter, who is a specialist in the Atlesian military. I have never been seriously injured, though I did almost lose an eye. I wanted to come to Beacon in order to gain a little bit of freedom from the control of my father. I have never had a crush and I don't have any embarrassing memories either. My future plans are uncertain, I'll likely become the head of the SDC and do my best to make it a better company, however in the circumstance that that doesn't happen, I'll become a huntress. My fighting style is methodical, find an enemy and strike it's weak points until it falls, rinse and repeat."

"You wanted to escape your father?" Blake asked with a curious glance at her blue-eyed teammate.

"Well," Weiss began hesitantly, her gaze roaming up to the ceiling. "Not necessarily escape him, as escape his tyranny for a little bit. He leads his family like he leads the SDC, like a dictator. My sister joined the Atlesian military without asking permission so she could get away from him, and I joined Beacon so I could see what it's like to not have him breathing down my neck 24/7. Though I will likely be forced to go back to the SDC after graduation."

"Someone should beat some sense into him," Yang said angrily as her lilac eyes flashed red for a moment.

"He's been so assured of his power for so long, that anyone beating him up would simply cause him to crack down harder, or maybe even file a police report. Regardless of who it was," Ruby stated matter-of-factly. "The only time you would be able to do anything to him would be after he retired, unless you wanna fight him to the death."

"Well, that's not a very positive outlook," the blonde sister responded quietly.

"Sadly, Yang, it's true," Weiss said, her gaze shifting to look at her teammate. "Winter hit him once and he made everyone's lives miserable for almost a full year because of it. He's still being extra harsh because Winter left. I almost feel sorry for Whitley, my younger brother, even though he and I never really cared for each other."

After that the team continued chatting for a little bit before all of them had to do their homework and go do things to prepare for the next day. Ruby ended up alone in the dorm, and found a note, hung on the outside of the building, underneath their window. ' _Clever,'_ she thought to herself as she opened the envelope, which was the same color as the building's walls, and read the note.

 _Dear Fatal End,_

 _It's nice to see you doing so well, and while I wish this was purely a social visit on my part, it isn't. Cold Steel and Magma, or Adam and Cinder as they now proudly call themselves, have been making movements to assassinate the other assassins, and have already killed a majority of the super soldiers that General Ironwood so 'graciously' liberated. Roman has already fallen the to combo, and it seems as though he managed to severely injure one of them, 'as they haven't made a move since. You have previously assumed the lead on joint missions, and I would like to ask you to take that mantle during this particular issue as well._

 _Sincerely, Your Favorite Sweet._

 _P.S. If you say cookies, I_ _ **will**_ _kill you._

Ruby frowned at the news she received, before quickly writing her response, and placing it outside her window, confident that her _friend_ would receive it and do as instructed.

 **A/N**

 **Hey everyone, I know it's been a while and I'm sorry for that. I kinda ended up driving across the country as my family moved from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast. Now that I'm settled though, I should be able to get the next few chapters out relatively quickly, barring writer's block. One of you informed me that "accelerade" is actually a generic term for sports drinks. That's actually quite awesome, I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.**

 **If you feel so inclined, I'd love to hear what any of you liked or disliked about this chapter. It's a lot easier for me to improve my writing if I get some form of constructive criticism from others.**

 **Nyway, hope you all enjoyed the chapter and have had a good day. 'Till next time.**


	9. Tutors From Hell

Weiss smiled lightly to herself as she walked through the streets of Vale. Night had fallen and team RWBY had just finished a 'light' study session, which she had planned, and she felt like it had gone exceptionally well. They had discovered that Ruby was a genius at all things related to math, Yang was incredibly knowledgeable about nutrition and generally anything related to keeping your body healthy and strong, and that Blake knew almost everything there was to know about the history of the world. It was because of this that Weiss felt confident that one of them would be at the top of every single class they had during their stay at Beacon, and that was a thought that definitely brightened her day.

The white-haired huntress in training had actually gone to Vale for a small shopping trip. She wanted to give each of her teammates little gifts to celebrate the fact that they had just completed what was technically their first major team building exercise. She felt odd trying to think of gifts to give them, even if she was only looking for minor ones, as she had only really had an acceptably long conversation with one of them, once.

A sigh left the heiress' lips as she thought about how little the team spoke to each other during their time together. It was essentially Ruby's fault, she had realized the day prior, though she doubted her team leader did it intentionally. The silver-eyed member of team RWBY was simply too closed off, and somehow it caused Blake and Weiss to be less social than they normally would have been. She was willing to claim that it even had an affect on Yang. The few times that Ruby had spoken with her teammates, were times where it would have either been exceptionally rude to stay silent, or where she had been spoken to directly.

It reminded Weiss of something her father had told her a long time ago, before he had been consumed by greed. 'If even one worker is unhappy, then it brings down the morale of everyone who has to work alongside him, so we need to do our best to treat our employees as best as we can, to keep everyone happy.' It was a great quote, and if he had continued to live by those words, the rest of his family would still love him. However, as it stood he was consumed by greed, no one loved him, and he loved no one.

With a shake of her head, Weiss brought her thoughts back to her team, and made a promise to herself that she would talk to Ruby about trying to find ways to encourage each other to talk more, at least with their fellow teammates. She was so preoccupied with her thoughts, that she almost didn't notice the person rushing towards her. As it was, she was still too late to respond. She was picked up by this person, and carried down a maze of back alleys and side roads until eventually they ended up in an unoccupied, yet lit, baseball field. Weiss had barely managed to avoid panicking, as images of what the stranger might have planned to do to her flashed through her mind, but as she stood facing him, it became apparent that the man before her was planning on fighting, a noise by her feet drew her attention to the fact that Myrtenaster was laying on the ground in front of her. She hesitantly bent down to pick up her weapon, keeping her eyes fixed on the stranger in front of her at all times, and assumed a combat stance

He was the basic definition of average. He stood at an average height, had black hair, and blue eyes, wore a plain black t-shirt, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. He was also holding what appeared to be a plain straight sword. The only thing that wasn't seemingly average about him, was the fact that he seemed incredibly fit, he didn't have bulging muscles, but the muscles that she could see on his forearm appeared as if they were perfectly sculpted out of stone. He made no move to attack her, seemingly content to wait for her to attack first.

Wanting to appear dignified and unfazed, Weiss straightened her back and addressed the stranger. "Who are you, how did you get my weapon, and what do you want from me?" She asked with as much confidence as she could muster, her icy-blue eyes betraying the worry she felt.

"I have no name," the man said in a deep voice. "How I got your weapon isn't important. I am here to administer a test. Come at me with everything you have, if I don't manage to knock you unconscious, you pass."

* * *

After team RWBY's group study session, Blake went to the roof of the dorms to engage in what had recently become her favorite pastime, stargazing. She thought back to the study session earlier that day, where Weiss and Ruby both proved themselves to be harsh taskmasters as far as studying was concerned. The raven-haired member of team RWBY had almost outright laughed at the look of horror that crossed Yang's face when Ruby smashed all of the calculators they had brought into dust.

" _I will not stand for such blasphemy from my own teammates," Ruby had declared vehemently in response to the looks of shock, and in Yang's case horror, that she had received from her teammates. "If you need calculators to do your math for you, then you haven't studied enough."_

Luckily for the team, Ruby proved to be very good at breaking everything down so it was easier to understand. She also gave them tips and catchy jingles to help them remember what kind of equations to use when, and how to solve certain types of problems. In all honesty, Blake thought Ruby would have been a great tutor, if it weren't for the fact that she didn't believe in explaining anything twice. If you didn't catch on the first time, then only divine intervention would get her to explain it to you again. Something that Yang, sadly, needed a lot of. The leader of team RWBY was also unforgiving. If you made a small mistake, she'd hand you a blank piece of paper and tell you to try again, without giving any tips as to what you did wrong. Though if you messed up three times in a row she would show you where you were making your mistake(s).

Weiss also proved to be a strict tutor. She even wanted to give everyone extra homework to help improve their grades. Ruby had forbidden her from doing so though. The white-haired member of team RWBY proved to be a terrible tutor though. She knew everything, sure, but she didn't know how to simplify it so that another person could possibly understand it. Blake was almost willing to bet that Yang learned more new words today than she did of any of the subjects they were supposed to be studying.

By the end of the study session, it was revealed that Yang was the only person who truly needed any kind of tutoring in order to have acceptable grades in her classes, but that even with them she'd likely not do too good unless she personally found a reason to try in her classes.

The sound of metal landing on concrete next to her drew Blake's attention, and when she turned to look she found Gambol Shroud laying next to her. Almost immediately, she grabbed her weapon, jumped into a combat stance, and looked for whoever had thrown her her weapon. Who she found, was not anyone she had been expecting. Blake found herself face to face with a fox faunus, who had crimson red eyes, and pure white hair. She was clad in a black shirt underneath deep blue, form fitting armor that had large gaps around her joints to prevent it from impeding any movements. The new visitor didn't seem that tall, if anything she was just barely taller than Weiss, and she held a deep blue glaive that was a little taller than she was herself.

"You are Blake Belladonna, correct?" The visitor asked emotionlessly.

"Who are you?" Blake asked with obvious animosity in her voice.

"My name is Onix Thorn," the blue armor clad woman responded. "Are you Blake Belladonna?"

A few moments passed before the amber-eyed girl responded. "I am."

"Good, then I've found the right person," Onix said while brandishing her glaive and getting into a relaxed combat stance. "Prove your worth to me."

* * *

Yang was on her way to a small bar in Vale. The study session team RWBY had had earlier that day had only taught her two things. One, Ruby was the queen of demons, and two, Weiss was a somewhat lesser demon. Why were they so insistent that she get good grades in all of her classes anyway? It's not like anything that she'd learn from said classes would help her in combat. Heck, one of the reasons she was a brawler was because she didn't want to have to think or strategize while fighting people, and while she had been repeatedly criticized on her fighting style, she was still one of the best fighters in her class, so she couldn't be too wrong in what she was doing. Or at least, that was her philosophy.

Anger boiled up in her as she recalled the image of her younger sister reducing her calculator to dust as they started studying for their math class. How was she supposed to do math if she didn't have a calculator? Yet Ruby didn't care, no, she kept pushing them harder to memorize the equations, and learn how to solve everything on their own. Something about how if they were in a situation where they actually needed what they were learning, needing a calculator would only drag them down. What's worse, is that Yang thought she was a form of twisted amusement in her sister's eyes as she looked at the rest of team RWBY and took in their shocked expressions. Shaking her head, Yang decided it was probably best if she didn't dwell on her demon sibling.

As the blonde bombshell of team RWBY was walking down the street, she felt someone poke her, repeatedly. Initially she tried to ignore the person who had either mistaken her for a friend, or was intentionally trying to annoy her, but eventually it got too much and she whirled around to glare at the poor person who had annoyed her so.

A short girl, with hair that was mostly pink, with a large brown section that made up most of the left half, stared back at her with an innocent expression on her wore a white coat that had the front cut off at her abdomen, and had some pink highlights, overtop a black, tight fitting shirt. She also wore black jeans, and white high-heeled, knee-high boots. After a few minutes of staring at each other, the shorter of the two pulled out a note and handed it to Yang.

 _Hello miss, you seem kinda angry, would you like to fight me?_

Yang stared at the note in disbelief for a few moments before looking back at the girl in front of her. "Why would you want to fight me?"

The small girl gave a shrug and a smile in response to Yang's question, before turning and walking away. Yang, despite her better judgement, found herself following the mysterious girl in front of her. A fight would be better for dealing with her frustrations anyway. After leading Yang to what appeared to be an open field, the multi-colored girl brandished an umbrella that Yang hadn't noticed before, and took a relaxed combat stance.

"If you don't take this seriously, you're going to get beat up."

The only response the girl saw fit to give was another light-hearted shrug, which prompted Yang to charge at her with a confident grin spreading on her face.

 **A/N**

 **Hey Everyone, this one annoyed the crap out of me, because as I was writing, I realized I had to split it roughly in half. Not because it would have been super long, though it would have been by far the longest chapter I have posted, but because it would have had no less than seven different scenes, and the idea of having that amount of scene breaks in one chapter infuriated me for no apparent reason. It also doesn't help that the scenes in this chapter are around 650 words only, on average, and the ones in the next chapter aren't going to be too much longer, so looking at it in the doc made me feel more like I'm writing a collection of extremely short stories, rather than one actual story. On the downside, you only get a part of what you would have gotten today, on the upside, you should get the rest soon :P (I say the word 'soon' a lot, I'm beginning to wonder if it means what I think it means.) Nyway, please leave a review with any constructive criticism you have to give, and let me know what you liked or didn't like about the chapter in particular. Hope you all have a great day.**


	10. Know Your Weakness

Weiss was desperately searching for a way to win. The nameless man before her always let her attack first, letting her set the initial rhythm of their clashes, but he'd quickly turn the tables against her every time, and that was back when Weiss was at her best. Now she could barely stand straight, her shoulders were sagging slightly from the sheer exhaustion she felt, and she couldn't afford the effort to pull Myrtenaster up into a fencing stance when not actively clashing with her opponent. She would have ran a long time ago, if not for the fact that he would always dash forward, grab her by her shirt, and throw her behind him, before returning to waiting for her to attack him.

"You are too slow," the man before her stated calmly. There was no disdain or disappointment in his voice, for he was simply stating a fact. "You use a form of swordplay that revolves mainly around speed, so why are you so slow?"

"I'll have you know there's not many at Beacon who can claim to be faster than I am," Weiss' voice was exhausted, her words broken by her panting, and yet her pride at her statement was still obvious.

"And yet that has gotten you nowhere, your strikes may have started out fast, but they quickly deteriorated into mere shadows of what they once were, and you're missing something important. In combat, you have to think and react quickly. You don't, or can't. You cover this weakness by thinking ahead and laying plans your opponent can't help but play along with. That, obviously, doesn't work against everyone. So, what will you do when your precious plans fail you?" The man started walking forward as he finished his question.

It was as he got within striking distance that Weiss made her move, the first move she hadn't meticulously planned out in a very long time. Myrtenaster shot forward towards a small opening that she didn't even fully realize was there until after the strike was well on its way towards her opponent. Her own speed shocked her, as the grey streak of light that was her weapon shot towards the unnamed man before her, confidence filled her as she felt that she could finally push him back.

Then his fist slammed into her stomach and launched her backwards.

The white-haired heiress landed in a heap and had to expend all of her effort to get back up. She had barely gotten to her knees when she heard the man's voice and her head shot up.

"Better, not great, but it's better than where you started," he stated, undeterred by the ice-blue eyes that were glaring at him. "Know this, teammate of Ruby Rose, Beacon is small, Remnant is large, if you try to base your status in the world off of your status in Beacon, you will die. You may be one of the fastest in your small little portion of the world, but if you ever step into the stage of true huntsmen and the actual threats of the world, you will become painfully aware of how slow you truly are. You will witness your strongest strikes bounce harmlessly off of your enemies, and you will feel despair. All of this will be fact, unless you train like your life depends on it, like every single creature in the world is vastly your superior and all you can do is try to catch up."

"How… do you… know Ruby?" Weiss asked between gasps of breath, having finally managed to get to her feet.

"There was a group of us, taken from a young age, and molded into the perfect warriors. We were supposed to be the strongest, we were supposed to take out any and every threat to humanity. We learned of stealth and subterfuge, in case we were fighting underground crime lords, and we learned of true strength and speed, in case we were fighting rogue huntsman or ancient grimm," the man paused in his response, as if trying to determine whether or not he should continue. "The Fourth Warrior, the one you know as Ruby Rose, was the one we all feared to fight. Not just because she herself is intimidating, but because her skill with her weapons are simply beyond anything any of us could match. Even though I'm supposed to be Remnant's best swordsman, I could barely fight her to a stalemate."

"So you're one of her old friends?"

He shook his head. "That would imply an innate trust of each other. We were all allies, sure, but most of us neither liked, nor trusted each other. She changed that, over time, and most of us learned to trust her, at least a little. However, friends is still a long way off for the vast majority of us. Now, are you done resting? Or do you give in?"

Weiss attempted to lift Myrtenaster into a combat stance, only to have his swords knock hers from her hands.

"Nothing good comes from fighting against insurmountable odds, know your limits so that you may learn when to run," with those last words, his fist once again collided with Weiss' stomach and her world rapidly faded to black.

* * *

Blake felt a growing fear develop during her fight with Onix. The young woman before her was obviously a combat veteran, having been able to block or dodge every single one of Blake's attacks. It was a terrifying thing to go through, pulling out every single trick you know, only to have it end up being completely useless every time. The woman had even developed a counter of sorts, though Blake had no clue if it was intentional. Every twentieth attempt Blake made would be countered instead of blocked or dodged, and as a result Blake sported a number of cuts and forming bruises; due to the fact that her aura had run out long ago.

"You have performed admirably," Onix said, her smooth voice disrupting Blake's thoughts. "You have shown a creativity that few would be able to match. However, my semblance is a almost perfect counter to your fighting style, and so that creativity is useless unless you have the strength and speed to best me."

Blake remained in her combat stance. "So, does that mean the test is over?"

Onix responded by nodding her head. "There is no reason to test someone with no chance of passing."

Blake bit back a retort. Admitting to herself that there was no way to beat the enemy before her was a bitter pill to swallow, but it had to be done. "How do I get stronger then?"

"Knowing your weakness is just the beginning, work yourself to exhaustion, grind your own bones to dust if you need to. Do everything you possibly can to erase that weakness. When you've done that, you can challenge me again, and maybe you will stand a chance." With those words, Onix walked away, leaving Blake with her own thoughts.

As Onix walked out of earshot, she pulled out her scroll and hit a button. Shortly after, a ringing sound started before being abruptly cut off and an image of Ruby appeared on the screen.

"Hello Razor," Ruby said cheerfully right as she picked up. "I'm guessing Blake gave up?"

"She did," Onix replied emotionlessly, moving her head to look up at the sky. "Fatal End, why have us test these three when they have no chance of passing?"

A short humm was Ruby's only response for a few seconds. "If you force someone to acknowledge their weakness, they will either accept that they're weak and go on with life, or they will fight it. They will put themselves through hell and worse just to have a chance at getting stronger, and in the end they will rise as one of the strongest."

"You're hoping that they'll fight it?" Onix asked, incredulity coating her voice as her red eyes glanced back down toward her scroll. "You want them to be like us?"

"Not really, though that'd be much better than if they just accepted it and moved on," Ruby responded nonchalantly. "It's more a mixture of I want to make them realize where they stand in the world, and I want to give them a hint of my real past. They seem to be trying to forget I was kidnapped by an unknown group for an extensive period of time and came out of that more than ready to be a student at Beacon."

A small laugh escaped Onix's lips. "Yes, because young women such as themselves are supposed to immediately assume you're a super secret assassin."

A light laugh was Ruby's only response as she ended the call.

"And Ice Cream wonders why that girl terrifies me," Onix muttered to herself with a sigh.

* * *

Yang was in the middle of the longest combo of consecutive punches she could remember. She would be proud of herself, if it wasn't for the fact that not a single punch landed on the multi-colored girl in front of her. As it was, this entire fight was a failure, and would continue to be, as she could feel her arms getting heavy, and the girl in front of her showed no signs of wearing down at all. In fact, she had kept an infuriating half-smirk plastered on her face for the entire fight.

The blonde brawler bit back a curse as a stylized pink umbrella slammed into her face and pushed her back. Her normally lilac eyes have long since started burning red as her anger rose further and further due to her fruitless attacks, and yet the small girl before her showed no hint of fear or concern. Just as she was getting ready to charge at her opponent once more, an automated voice sounded, stopping her in her tracks.

"I've been watching you, Yang, sister and teammate of Ruby," the sound came from the multi-colored girl, who had started looking around as if confused, even though the confusion was obviously faked. "It's hard to imagine that two sisters could be so different, even if they were raised separately."

"Why do you care?" Yang asked, her anger making the words sound more like a threat than a question.

At this moment, the multi-colored girl held up a finger, and pulled out her scroll before typing something and waiting. "I am Ice Cream, I care about Ruby and everything she does. You don't deserve your relation to her, you're too weak, too slow, and your attacks are far too straight forward. There is no way you'd ever be able to beat an opponent with any real level of experience and yet you strut around Beacon, acting like you're the best the world has to offer, because you can beat up some huntresses and hunters in training. By the time you graduate you'll be hiding in corners to avoid being laughed at."

Red flared in Yang's vision as she flew forward, intent to put this girl in her place, only to receive a kick to face and be sent flying backwards as the girl typed something else out.

"Pride is good, if you deserve it, you aren't worthy of any of the pride you feel. Come, Yang Xiao-Long, try and prove me wrong, and learn your place. On your knees. At my feet."

Yang charged forward, intent to end the fight right at that very moment. She charged her right fist with every ounce of strength, aura, and semblance she had at her disposal, and punched right for the multi-colored girl's face. For once, she hit her target, but upon contact, the girl's image shattered into hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny pieces. Fear cleared her of her anger faster than anything ever had before. She had messed up, and there was no way her opponent would let this pass. She turned her head to the side just in time to see the pink parasol slam into her head and force her to the ground. Groggily she tried to gain her bearings and stand up, only to realize that the, apparently mute, girl had stepped on her chest and was already swinging the parasol at Yang's head again. Not a moment later Yang lost consciousness.

 **A/N**

 **So I apparently accidentally sold my soul, and all of my free time, to Wal-Mart. However, now I have free time back, and while I won't promise an update next week, 'cause we all know how those go by now, I can promise I will finish this story. However, know that this will likely be my last RWBY story, despite my many story ideas for RWBY specifically. This latest season… well let's just say there was enough in it to make me think that it's better if I quit the show. No, it's not just Jaune's fault, even though I despise him as a character and the amount of screentime he's given. Nyway, this is an absurdly long Author's note for this chapter, where nothing of note really happened. Just note that my Beta-Reader, Imoshen_88, hasn't been able to look over the Yang scene, as she had something else come up and I promised a good friend, Archer1eye, that I'd get this out today. Also, I have notice that for whatever reason my copy and pasting this from Google Docs into the FF doc manager sometimes makes it miss a couple of words, if anyone notices anything like that, feel free to let me know.**


	11. Harsh Truths

Blake became surprised as she walked into her dorm room after her "test" with Onix. Not only was Onix in her dorm, but there were two other strangers as well and all three of them were sitting in chairs positioned along the wall on the far side of the room. After looking around a little more, Blake realized that both Weiss and Yang were laying on their beds, beat up and bruised, but at least they seemed to be resting peacefully. She couldn't hide her wince at the apparently harsh treatment they had received.

"So another one joins us," a black-haired man said in a deep voice. "Now we're just waiting for the final piece and the meeting can begin."

Blake's mind was suddenly full of questions, but she couldn't find the energy in herself to voice any of them, instead she slowly made her way to her own bed, sat down on it, and then waited in silence for the last person, who she could only assume was her team leader, to show up.

Blake felt a sense of unease in the pit of her stomach. She was confident that the others in the room weren't going to hurt her, anymore than Onix already had at least, but she couldn't shake the unease. It just felt wrong to her with the silence that was in the room, despite how many people were in the room. Most people passively generated noise, even her. No matter how hard you try, you could only turn the page of a book so quietly, or move so much before your clothes started rustling. Yet, somehow, the others in the room with her didn't. They sat so still, and their breaths were so calm that not even Blake's heightened hearing could pick up any sound. It was because of this that, when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway, she eagerly focused on the sound, desperate for any distraction from the dominant silence in her own room. Silence that she didn't dare to break.

Perhaps because she was so desperate for a distraction, Blake didn't even notice until the last moment that the footsteps were headed toward their room. So despite hearing them coming, she was still shocked when the door rapidly opened, stopping just short of slamming into the wall, and in walked her team leader. Ruby entered the room with a resigned sigh, her normal outfit replaced with a black leather armor, that had dark red accents in the form of gloves, boots, a couple of fashion accents, and her belt. As the door closed behind the young scythe-wielder, the black-haired man, and the girl that could only be described as multicolored everything, both stood up and approached the two unconscious teammates to wake them. Weiss woke after a gentle shake, while Yang, unfortunately, had to receive a combat umbrella to the gut before she rejoined the world of the conscious.

"What was that for!?" Yang shouted after having quickly jumped out of her bed.

Weiss, who had been staring at the man who woke her in shock, started and looked around the room rapidly. Her icy-blue eyes eventually settled on Ruby. "Ruby?" She asked softly. Unable to voice any of the many questions she had running through her mind.

Silver eyes stared at blue eyes and Ruby responded. "King, Ice Cream, Onix, please introduce yourselves."

Despite the fact that everyone was spread out, the black-haired man stepped forward. "My name is King. To those in the know, I am considered the foremost sword master in all of Remnant."

After King's introduction, the umbrella wielding girl began to furiously type on her scroll, before handing it to Yang. The blond looked at the shorter girl in confusion for a moment before realizing she was supposed to read it. "My name is Neo, or Ice Cream to my friends. I'm Ruby's favorite ... sweet. Don't let her trick you into thinking it's cookies." After she finished reading, she looked in shock from the scroll to Ruby a couple of times until Neo took the scroll away from her.

Finally the white-haired fox faunus stepped forward, despite the fact that she was actually facing a wall and almost walked into it in the process. "My name is Onix thorn," her smooth voice carried across the room despite her position. "Ruby's ally."

Ruby snapped, which gathered the attention of everyone present in the room. "Alright. For a basic explanation," the red-tipped brunette began in a no-nonsense tone of voice. "I became aware of a potential threat, and called upon some old friends to test you three and rate your combat abilities." Looking around, RWBY's team leader saw grimaces form on her teammates faces. "You weren't supposed to win. If any of you had won, I'd be very concerned about why you're strong enough to win." She earned three confused looks in that moment. "I'll explain that some other day. For today," and she turned to Onix, King, and Neo who had grouped together. "Report."

Once again, King stepped forward first. Separating himself from the group in the center of the room. "Weiss Schnee. Competent fighter, if predictable and easily manipulated if the opponent knows how to do so. Her biggest strengths are her confidence and ability to plan ahead. Her greatest weaknesses, aside from questionable footwear, are her speed, and the fact that she has issues interrupting her own plans to take advantages of new openings. Current combat threat level: four." After finishing his report, King stepped back into the group and Neo stepped out, holding her scroll out to Blake this time.

After taking the scroll, Blake began reading the report out loud. "Yang Xiao-Long. Decent at hand-to-hand combat. Though if it weren't for her deceptively absurd strength and ridiculous endurance, you could call her mediocre at best. Her strengths are easily her actual physical strength, and the fact that she can take some of the worst beatings you've ever seen and keep fighting. Her semblance helps with this, but isn't the main cause. Weaknesses are the fact that she only knows how to attack non-stop, and despite knowing some form of martial arts, she only employs the bare-minimum of it, always defaulting to punching the face or torso with only her brute strength to guide her fists. If you find a way to interrupt her attacks, or knock her off balance, she takes a long time to recover. Combat threat level: three." Blake sent Yang a short, apologetic, look as she finished reading the report.

Neo and Onix traded places while Yang let out a disbelieving noise at her combat threat level. "Blake Belladonna," the crimson eyed faunus began. "A creative fighter with a tricky semblance. Her ingenuity is a strong asset to her in combat. She did show signs of reliance on her semblance for most of her tactics, and without it is only a lack-luster fighter at best. This is due to the fact that she has seemingly trained mostly for swift strikes, while confidently relying on her semblance to get into position. As a result her actual movements are slow in comparison to what you'd expect. Her main weaknesses are her physical strength and speed, while her main strengths are her creativity and adaptability in combat. Combat threat level: five."

Yang huffed in irritation and looked at her younger sister. "What's your combat threat level?"

It was simply meant as a small way of venting her frustration at being measured as the weakest on her team. Nothing was really supposed to come of it, the blond didn't even expect any of them to answer. All of her irritation immediately died mere moments after voicing the rhetorical question though as three voices simultaneously spoke up confidently. "Mortal."

Another, impressively loud, snap from Ruby made seven heads turn towards her. "Now that we've assessed your weaknesses. How do the three of you plan on getting better?"

Blake raised her hand hesitantly, and upon getting recognition from her team leader spoke softly. "Before that, can I ask why we had no warning of this test?"

"If I had told you, you'd have known your life wasn't at risk, and if you knew that your life wasn't at risk, you might not have given it your all and more. The accuracy of the assessment greatly depends on measuring how you respond when you feel at risk and are in an unexpected situation." The team leader's voice was impassive as she responded, betraying no emotions whatsoever. "So, now that you all know your assessments, what do you plan on doing about it?"

"Training," Yang said immediately. Her lilac eyes filled with determination as she turned to point at Neo, who merely raised an eyebrow in response. "And I won't stop until I can beat your face in."

A disappointed sigh escaped Weiss' lips as she looked away from Yang and focused on King. "As much as I hate to agree with her, I'd like to believe there's a reason as to which one of you was chosen to test each of us. So, at the risk of imposing, I'd request some time to train with you, at least until you deem me properly fit for combat."

A grin slowly spread on King's face. "Indeed there is a reason, in fact, I was chosen because I originally used to use a fighting style very similar to yours, but upon finding that I enjoyed the balance of a standard short sword better than a rapier, I switched. I will accept your request for training, but be warned, you will know pain and exhaustion. You will live with both, and when all is said and done, they will have no hold on you even in your most hopeless of moments."

Blake turned to face Onix, but before she even had the chance to open her mouth, the crimson-eyed Faunus spoke, "I'll be on the rooftops on your off days, find me there if you wish to start training with me."

Onix then turned, walked to the door, and left the room. King and Neo weren't far behind her, and soon team RWBY found themselves alone in their dorm room. Ruby, ignoring the questioning glances of her teammates, walked over to Weiss and began to inspect the heiress' injuries.

"Umm, Ruby?" Weiss asked questioningly.

"I'm just making sure none of your injuries are too severe. I might trust them to not kill any of you, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't push you a little too far. Despite the need to test you, I also can't have you too injured to participate in combat class," Ruby responded as she poked at one of Weiss' bruises that hadn't fully healed yet, despite her slowly recovering aura working to heal the wound.

"And I appreciate the gesture. However, that's not what I wanted to ask," the heiress stated, her blue eyes fixed on her team leader. Ruby didn't bother vocalizing a response, instead choosing to wave her hand in an invitation to continue speaking. "Who are they? And how do you know them?"

The silver-eyed team leader of RWBY poked at Weiss' stomach, specifically where Weiss had received the punch that knocked her unconscious. "The simple version of it," she began with a light humm upon realizing that Weiss was fine and gently pushing the other girl away from her. "Would be that they're all people who had been kidnapped by the same people who kidnapped me, and we were all raised and trained together for the majority of our lives. If you want to know more, you'll need to get to know them better."

The youngest member of team RWBY then moved over to Blake and began to inspect her remaining injuries as well. "Blake, why didn't you try to run from Onix during your test?"

"It didn't cross my mind," the amber-eyed girl responded curiously. "Why do you ask?"

"In most combat situations, especially involving the grimm, simply giving up won't fix the situation. Your life would have still been at risk," Ruby said as she pressed a hand against Blake's side to see if the older girl winced. "If you take her up on her offer of training, I want you to take at least one session to try and run away from her. See if you can."

Amber eyes blinked with surprise, and then looked at the ground. "Okay, thanks."

"It's not a rebuke, Blake. It's a statement, and a suggestion. I wanted to know if there was something you noticed that kept you from running," Ruby said while stepping back from Blake and moving on to her sister. "Turns out there wasn't."

Ruby stood there in front of Yang for a few moments, before she spoke. "Neo knocked you out via umbrella to the head, didn't she?" Her silver eyes were locked on a still ugly bruise on the side of Yang's head, as she asked that question.

"She did, what about it?" Yang asked, both confused and annoyed. Her confusion only growing as Ruby grabbed her arm and started walking toward the door.

"We're going to the nurse, it's possible you have a concussion, and might suffer from Post-concussion syndrome. It shouldn't be too problematic, as your aura will manage it as your aura recovers, but it could explain why your bruises aren't healing that well, if your aura is too busy healing your brain." With those words said, the door closed behind the two sisters, and the remaining two members of team RWBY plopped down on their beds, unable to find the energy to worry for their potentially wounded teammate.

 **A/N**

 **So, I feel bad** **that it's been so long, and to be honest, I'm not even entirely sure this chapter has a good enough increase in quality to be worth all of the time I spent practicing short stories during the time I was gone. As an important note, I also very much forgot exactly how relaxing, and overall good for my mental and emotional health, writing is for me. Especially a story like this where it's a story that plays before me in my mind, and all I have to worry about is doing my best to describe what's happening in a way that does it justice. Spoiler Alert, I don't do it justice, but I'm working on getting better. Hope everyone had an amazing New Year! - Shaded 122**


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